


Our Little Horizon

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Horse Racing, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Claire Is Gay, F/F, F/M, Horse Racing, Horses, Love Triangles, Okay A Lot Of Horse Movie Tropes, Slow Burn, Small Towns, Some Horse Movie Tropes, Teen Angst, Teenagers, Unrequited Love, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2018-11-01 12:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 196,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10921776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Castiel accepts a job at the Morningstar Ranch to train their racehorses, thinking that moving to a quiet small town will be good for his troubled niece, Claire. As soon as he arrives, however, he realizes the place is at the edge of financial collapse and the owners of the ranch, the Masters siblings, have a tense relationship at best. Tom is convinced their safest bet is to sell everything to ambitious landowner, Fergus Crowley, but Meg is fighting tooth and nail to keep her father’s legacy alive. Though they clash at first, Meg and Castiel soon discover they make a good team in and out of the race track, and their joint efforts might be the last chance to save the unexpected home and family they find together.





	1. Morningstar

“We’re totally lost, aren’t we?”

“I’m sure we’ll be there any moment now. We can’t be far.”

Castiel noted the look of skepticism in Claire’s face, but decided not to comment on it.

When they’d begun the road trip, Claire had been decided to give him the silent treatment, and she’d actually succeeded at it for several miles. He would have turned on the radio if it wasn’t because he knew that would be a complete different fight about who got to change the dial only for them to settle in some of the noise (he refused to acknowledge it was music) that she liked. He preferred the awkwardness of Claire not even sparing him a look because he knew from experience that she couldn’t keep it up forever.

After a couple of hours, she’d started answering in monosyllables to her uncle’s attempts at conversation, until she finally uttered a complete sentence to announce she was hungry.

“Well, there’s probably a restaurant we can stop by when we arrive,” Castiel had said optimistically. “They’re not waiting for us until this afternoon, so we’ve got time to have lunch. And it’ll be a nice way to get to know our new town, don’t you think?”

Claire had glared at him for several seconds before she turned around to stare out of the car window. Obviously, she didn’t think so.

Castiel was used to her mood swing and her cold shoulder, and he tried to be patient, he really did. He understood it couldn’t be easy for Claire to go through what she had gone through and he didn’t blame her for being angry at him. He knew it was going to be a thankless job when he decided to take her in, and it was fine if she thought he was doing everything to ruin her life and not for her own good. He trusted she’d understand it one day, when she was older.

But goddammit, sometimes he couldn’t help but to get frustrated at how far away that day was.

To make matters worse, they were lost. He supposed Claire _could_ blame him for that, because he had been stupid enough to think the car’s GPS would keep working even when they started travelling down some really desolated secondary roads. He had no idea where they were exactly, he didn’t have a backup map and they’d hadn’t seen a single human being they could ask for directions; just miles and miles of solitary green fields at both their sides. Castiel was almost tempted to speed up just to see if that would bring the attention of a cop, but he didn’t want Claire calling him out on his recklessness after he’d had to nag her for so long to get her to put on the seat belt.

“Here’s a thought,” Claire said after another ten minutes. “How about you speed up and ask for directions to the first cop that shows up to stop us?”

“We’re not doing that,” Castiel groaned. “And please, take your feet off the dashboard.”

Claire took her time to obey, stretching her legs with a deep sigh, maybe to remind him this trip was taking a lot longer than it should.

“Well, what options do we have?” she protested. “Keep going this way forever until we run out of gas and have to walk dragging our suitcases with us? Which, FYI, are kind of heavy because I’m bringing what you let me keep from my actual life before taking me here.”

“We’re not running out of gas,” he replied. “We have an extra can, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because we’re not going to run out of gas before we get there.”

Claire threw an eloquent look at the fuel gauge with her bright blue eyes.

“Whatever you say, _Castiel_ ,” she said, and as always, she managed to make his name sound like a taunt. Whatever had happened to “Uncle Cas”, he didn’t know.

Castiel resisted the urge to look down for fifteen seconds exactly. The needle was worryingly close to the E.

In any case, even if they weren’t stopped by a cop, they were bound to find someone who could help them. This impossible road had to lead somewhere.

He changed gears and practically stomped on the pedal.

“Now you’re talking,” Claire said approvingly before rolling down the window and sticking her head out as far as the seatbelt allowed her to. Her long blonde hair spread behind her, waving in the wind like a victory flag.

Honestly, Castiel knew he shouldn’t have let her talk him into this. But it had been a long tiresome trip, and it was the first time since they’d left New York that he’d seen Claire crack a smile; an actual happy smile and not a sarcastic one at that. So yes, maybe he wasn’t being as cautious as he should have, but it was worth it to hear her laugh.

And it worked faster than he’d imagined. A police car appeared almost immediately in the rearview mirror.

“Shit,” he muttered, stretching his hand to yank Claire into the car.

“Language,” she said, wryly.

Castiel ignored her. He slowed down and stopped on the side of the road and tried to put on his calm, respectable face, the one Claire said was creepy because it made him seem expressionless and inhuman. That might have been the case, but it served to mask his nervousness.

The police car stopped and a small woman with short black hair exited it and walked towards them while Castiel hurriedly rolled down his window.

“Where’s the fire, son?” she asked, even though she couldn’t be more than a few years older than him.

“Sorry, officer…”

“Sheriff,” she corrected him, pointing at the golden star on her chest.

“Yes, sheriff,” Castiel said. “Uh… there’s no fire, but we’re sort of late for an appointment. Would you happen to know where Northeast Haven is?”

“Cas, she’s got the name in her star,” Claire pointed out, in that tired tone that indicated she thought he was being obtuse on purpose.

Only then he noticed the “N. H.” engraved in the star, underneath the tag with the name “Mills, J.” He was about to apologize, but the Sheriff didn’t seem annoy.

“Smart kid you got there,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, she’s my niece,” Castiel clarified.

“My daughter’s about the same age,” Sheriff Mills commented. “Tough times, huh?”

Claire took offense at that, because she sighed and decided to stop participating in the conversation by looking away. The sheriff offered Castiel a comprehensive smile.

“You missed the turn for the town a mile back,” she told him. “Just turn around and keep an eye to your left. If you need a place to stay, ask for Ellen Harvelle at the Roadhouse. She’s also the manager of the B&B.”

She didn’t gave them a name for the place. Castiel supposed it didn’t need it since it was the only one in the town.

“Thank you. Oh, and could please tell me the way to Morningstar… t-the ranch?” he clarified, as if it was necessary. By the way Sheriff Mills raised her eyebrows, she obviously knew the place.

“Why the hell would you want to go there?” she asked, but then immediately shrugged, like it was none of her business. “You’re actually closer to them than to the town. Just kept going straight for ten minutes, you should find the gates.”

There was a strange way she pronounced the “them”, like the people at the ranch weren’t part of the town’s population as well. Castiel registered, but decided to make nothing of it for the moment.

“Thank you very much for your help.”

“No problem,” Sheriff Mills said. “Hey, take it easy,” she added when Castiel turned the engine on again. “I don’t want any shenanigans here.”

“You won’t have them,” Castiel promised her, although he couldn’t speak for Claire. “Thanks again, ma’am.”

The Sheriff returned to her car, but they didn’t see her turn around until they were far away. She probably debating if it was worth it to follow them and give them a ticket after all, but in the end she must have deemed it unnecessary, because she turned around and disappeared in the contrary direction.

After the tension died out, Castiel couldn’t help a little bit of gloating.

“So we weren’t that lost after all,” he commented.

Claire only huffed, like she knew Castiel was right but he wasn’t about to admit it.

“I think we’ll like it here,” he insisted. “People seem to be a lot more welcoming and warm. You’ll make friends in no time, I’m sure.”

“Whatever,” Claire said, which was her standard answer for when she didn’t have an answer.

Castiel refused to let his niece’s pessimism get him down.

The ranch appeared after a bend on the road. It was a huge house with a with façade standing in the middle of a sea of green and enormous oak trees. Castiel only took a glance at it because they were already reaching the gates. It was tall and had a wooden poster on top that read “Morningstar” with a little four-point star drawn beneath it. He stopped the car on the path that lead to it and climbed out. Claire followed suite.

“Well, at least it’s big enough that we won’t have to see much of each other, huh?”

Castiel ignored her jab. He was too busy looking at the reason he had come here for.

There was a foal and his mother grazing the grass right next to the fence. They were both chestnuts, their hair so bright and smooth it was clear someone had taken the time to brush them painstakingly. The foal couldn’t be more than a few months old, but already he stood proud next to his mother in his long, thin legs.

“Hello,” Castiel said, offering his open palm. He didn’t have any treats to offer, but the mare was obviously used to take it that gesture meant she was going to get something. The foal remained behind, eyeing the visitors with suspicion while the mare smelled Castiel’s hand. Her hot breath tickled him, and he smiled happily. “You’re beautiful,” he told her, patting her muzzle. “Yes, you are. Come say hi, Claire.”

“Uh… no, thanks.”

Castiel was going to tease her about being scared of a mellow horse when the mare’s head left his hand suddenly. Her neck grew tense and her ears stood to attention. A second later, she and her foal were fleeing into the great green extension behind them.

Another horse appeared, this one a tall dapple grey, fully bridled, who charged towards them like he was going to jump the fence. Castiel stepped backwards, surprised, but the dapple grey halted flawlessly a few inches in front of him.

“You’re in private property,” the rider told them.

Castiel looked up at her. He couldn’t make most of her features, because she was wearing a hat to protect herself from the sun and the shadows obscured her face. But he had the distinctive impression she was a young woman and she was scowling at them, like expecting their explanation for them being there was a quick and good one.

“Uh, yes, hi,” Castiel stuttered. “I’m Castiel Novak, this is my niece, Claire. We talked to Mr. Lafitte…”

“You’re the new trainer?”

Something in her smoky voice made Castiel think she wasn’t particularly impressed by it, so he squared his shoulders and raised his chin.

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, I am.”

The rider hesitated for another moment, like she wasn’t entirely sure whether to believe him or not. Before Castiel could add something else, she dismounted. He was surprised to find out how short she was, barely a head taller than Claire. Her body was thin and her hands agile while she undid the lock and pulled the gates open. When she stepped forwards and threw her head backwards, Castiel was lost for words for a second: despite her hostile expression, she had a beautiful round face with big brown eyes.

“You can park your car in the garage over there,” she instructed them, coolly. “I’ll send Benny to speak to you and tell you how things work around here.”

“Thanks…”

“Don’t forget to close the gate,” she reminded them, without offering her name or any other hint at who she was. She mounted the dapple grey again and made it turn around. With a swift movement of the bridle, she set the horse running again.

“Oh, yeah. People around here are so warm and welcoming,” Claire commented, sarcastically.

Castiel didn’t take the jab, too busy watching the woman ride away. The way she arched back, her small frame, all of it indicated they had just met Morningstar’s very own jockey.

 

* * *

 

“Sorry I kept you waiting, brotha’. Weren’t expecting you for at least a couple more hours.”

Benny Lafitte looked almost exactly as he had in their Skype conference: he had blue eyes and a brown bead that covered his cheeks and his chin. He also was tall and broad-shouldered, with big muscles product of Castiel deduced, years of working in the country, carrying loads and doing a lot manual labor. His smile was wide and yes, a lot more friendly than the jockey’s.

“It’s okay,” Castiel said, shaking his hand. “We didn’t wait for long, Mr. Lafitte.”

“Mr. Lafitte was my old man. Call me Benny,” he replied. “And you must be Claire. Your uncle told me you’re a very smart girl. He didn’t say you were also pretty. Boys around here will be happy to see you, I’ll bet.”

Claire didn’t even try to force a smile, so Castiel hurried up to cover for it.

“Well, we have a lot to unpack and we’d like to…”

“Yeah, sure. Let me help you with that,” Benny said, and before Castiel could tell him that wasn’t necessary, he picked up two of the heaviest boxes effortlessly. “You will be staying at the keeper’s cottage,” he kept saying as they left the garage. “It has two rooms and it’s fully functional, so you won’t have to come to the main house for anything. Well, the fridge is empty, but as soon as you get to do your groceries, you should be all set.”

The cottage was a small compared to the house, but it looked a lot cozier, with its wooden walls and its red roof. Benny was explaining something about the lights when a loud barking came from behind it. An enormous black Labrador came trotting from behind the cottage and before Benny could topped him, he leaped and tackled Claire into the ground. Her bags slid from her hand as the dog licked her face with enthusiasm, like he had known her his whole life.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Benny exclaimed, grabbing the dog by the collar and pulling him away. “I’m really sorry. _Cerberus_ has no manners!”

Castiel thought Claire was going to shout at him or say something sarcastic and rude, but to his surprise, his niece smile.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Come here, boy.”

 _Cerberus_ sneaked from Benny’s grip and shoot directly at Claire, who patted him in the head and scratched him behind his years while the dog basically drooled all over her jeans and shoes.

“You like dogs?” Benny asked. “We’ve got a couple running around the property. _Lila_ is having a new litter next month. Maybe you can convince your uncle to let you keep one of the pups.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Claire said casually, rubbing her hands on her pants before picking up the bags again. That was code for ‘ _I would really like that, but it would kill my aloof teenager vibe if I said so_ ’, so Castiel silently took note.

“Well, here we are,” Benny said, unlocking the door. “My wife, Andrea, cleaned it up for ya. You can ask her to come do it again when you need it or you can maintain it yourselves. Your choice.”

“I think we can handle it,” Castiel said.

The cottage could be taken in with just one look. It had a small kitchen, a table with three chairs and a small living area with a couch that looked brand new and a TV with a DVD player and what seemed to be a very wide selection of movies. There was a short hall with three closed doors that Castiel deduced led to the bedrooms and the bathroom.

“Make yourselves at home,” Benny said, handing the keys to Castiel.

“Thanks,” he replied. “Oh, about my obligations…”

Benny raised an open palm to stop him.

“We can discuss business later,” he said. “You must be hungry.”

“Starving, actually,” Claire said. “ _Someone_ missed the turn for the town so we couldn’t stop for lunch.”

Castiel gritted his teeth, but Benny chuckled, amused.

“Come to the main house in fifteen minutes, then,” he invited them. “I’ll tell Andrea to make something and then we can talk about the horses and I’ll introduce you to the boss… if she’s around.”

That seemed a little odd. Why wouldn’t the boss (Castiel assumed he meant the owner of the property) be around her own ranch?

“Alright. Thanks again.”

Benny touched his hat as a farewell and left with _Cerberus_.

“What do you say if we start unpacking…?” Castiel asked, turning around only to discover it was too late.

Claire had crossed the hall it in two strides. She opened the first door, then the second one and nodded to herself before throwing her bag inside.

“Remind me to ask them for the Wi-fi password,” she said, before closing the door behind her.

Well, at least they wouldn’t have to discuss who was going to sleep in which room.

 

* * *

 

The main house, as Benny had called it, was the enormous house they had seen from the road. When Castiel looked out the window of the room Claire had decided would be his, he realized that it was facing directly towards its grey walls and the oval and brown practice yard a few feet away. It didn’t matter, because he could still see the ranch’s green extension from the kitchen’s window. He was anxious to wake up and see the horses roaming there every morning. He couldn’t wait to mount them, let them run free and happy without bridling them.

In his previous job, the ranch was just outside of the city and it was much smaller. There were only three horses that didn’t always have the chance to be horses after hours, and it had broken Castiel’s heart a little to leave them to other people he didn’t know for sure would take care of them the same way he did. But it was far too late to regret his decision, and besides, it had been for a good reason.

Claire slammed the door close, bringing him back to the present. She had changed into a clean outfit, with a different pair of jeans and hoodie, despite the weather. She was clearly surprised Castiel hadn’t done the same.

“You do realize you have been driving with that same shirt for eight hours, don’t you?” she pointed out. “It smells like sweat and desperation.”

Castiel didn’t appreciate her tone, but he had to concede she was right. He was tempted to point out that while she was in her room he had been putting some things in order, like sheets in his bed and towels in the bathroom, but arguing would only get them stuck there further long.

“Give me five minutes to change.”

“I’m going to start eating the furniture,” Claire replied, with a cringe. “I’ll just go and you can catch me up later.”

“No, wait,” Castiel stopped her when she was already heading for the door. “I don’t want you going there alone.”

“Oh, so we’ve started with the overprotective shtick already?”

Castiel ignored her as he ran to his room to look for something clean. In the two seconds it took him to pull a clean shirt out of the bag, he heard the door opening and closing in the living room.

“Claire?” he called, but the cabin was empty. Cursing under his breath, Castiel pull the sleeves of his shirt and ran out while he mindlessly buttoned it up.

Claire was halfway on the path to the main house when he caught up with her. She rolled her eyes when Castiel chastised her for not waiting for him.

“I thought people here were all warm and welcoming.”

“You know what I meant,” Castiel groaned. “You shouldn’t go around like that until we’ve met everybody.”

“Like that’s going to make any difference,” Claire replied without looking at him.

Castiel stopped walking.

“Claire…”

Before he could add anything else, the main door opened and a woman with olive skin and a braid falling over shoulder beckoned them to come in with a smile.

“You must be the Novaks,” she said, while she cleaned her hands on the apron she was wearing before offering it to them. “Nice to meet you. I’m Andrea.”

She spoke with a slight accent while she guided them inside and pointed out the different rooms in the house while reminding them they could come in whenever they needed anything. She even pointed at a glass door and a huge swimming pool with glimmering water in the back of the house and assured them they were welcome to use it.

“I know you won’t start classes until September,” she told Claire. “But there’s a very large library if you ever need to research something for your homework down the hall.”

“Do you have a thing called the Internet?” Claire asked, and before Castiel could scold her for being rude, Andrea replied:

“Yes, of course. I imagine you want to talk to your friends from New York.” She smiled wide to her, like her kindness just wouldn’t waver in the face of Claire’s rudeness. “Meg had it installed so I could chat with my family back in Greece. This is the kitchen.”

Castiel was pretty certain they could fit at least half of their cabin in it. The place was immaculate white and shining silver from the appliances and the pots and pans hanging from the walls. One would imagine that a place like that would smell of disinfectant, but they were actually met with the scent of spices and hot bread. A plate with sandwiches and a jar of orange juice with two glasses were waiting for them on the table. Castiel felt his mouth watering at the sight.

“Oh, thank you!” Claire exclaimed before flailing down the chair and grabbing one. “I thought I was going to die.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Castiel sighed, but he too felt a lot more like a human being the moment he took a bite. It was a simple sandwich of ham, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, but the bread had marjoram to add to its flavor and the orange juice was cold and just the right side of sweet. For several minutes they didn’t say anything, and Castiel imagined they looked like starving beasts devouring their prey, so he swallowed and turned to Andrea, who was quietly washing the dishes behind them. “So, uh… when are we going to meet Mr. and Mrs. Masters?”

“Well, Tom… I mean, Mr. Masters,” she corrected herself, and Castiel thought he detected a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Or maybe living with Claire for so long had made him hypersensitive to those things. “He’s… not in town a lot these days. Meg is busy with the horses, but she’ll come back when she’s hungry.”

“So they’re married, but he doesn’t live here?” Claire asked, and Castiel had to resist the impulse to kick her under the table.

“Oh, no, not at all,” Andrea laughed, like the idea was ridiculous. “They’re brother and sister. They inherited the place from their father. They both own it, but Meg runs it. Tom… comes around occasionally.”

Her tone indicated she wasn’t particularly fond of those occasions, but she wasn’t about to bad mouth her boss’ brother.

“I see,” Castiel nodded. “So it’s her, you and Benny and…?”

Andrea frowned, like she wasn’t catching Castiel’s drift.

“And?”

“Who else lives here?” Castiel insisted, remembering the short woman who had opened the gates for them.

“Just the three of us,” Andrea shrugged. “And now you two, I guess.”

“All of this space for just five people?” Claire asked, but that wasn’t what was in Castiel’s mind when the kitchen door burst open and the jockey walked in. Her shirt and her trousers were covered in dirt and had some green stains, like she had fallen from the horse, and she had loosened her hair, that now fell over her shoulders in shapeless curls.

“Hey, Andrea,” she greeted the housekeeper as she started unbuttoning her shirt. “You’re going to have to wash this before…”

“Meg!” Andrea warned her, when Meg’s shirt was already undone.

Castiel caught a glimpse of her shoulders and her bra before he turned his head away in shame. His cheeks burnt and by the way Claire snickered, his discomfort must have been pretty obvious.

“Oh,” Meg said. “Sorry.”

She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded a little annoyed that she couldn’t take off her clothes in the sanctity of her own kitchen.

“Who are you?” was her next, still slightly annoyed question.

He took breath and decided that, eventually, he would have to look at his boss in the eye, so he lifted his head. Meg was holding her shirt close, but she hadn’t buttoned it up again.

“I’m… Castiel Novak, we…” he started, but Meg interrupted her.

“I was talking to the girl.”

Castiel hoped to God Claire wasn’t going to say something rude or sarcastic.

“I’m his niece, Claire,” she said, imitating the cadence Castiel adopted when introducing her.

“Do you like horses?”

The question was so out of the blue even Claire had nothing to say for once.

“No, that’s more of his thing,” she replied, pointing at Castiel.

Meg clicked her tongue like she was disappointed. She opened the fridge and pulled a bottle of water.

“When you’re done eating, come to the stables,” she said. “I’ll introduce you.”

Castiel was almost sure she was talking to him, but he didn’t have confirmation until Meg snapped at him:

“Did you hear me, Novak?”

“Yes,” he replied. She probably he was an idiot, so he straightened his shoulders once more. “Yes, I’ll be right there.”

“Good,” she replied, as she strode again towards the door. “And wake up, will you? Slow and steady doesn’t win a horserace.”

He didn’t know if he was supposed to laugh or how to answer to that, but it didn’t matter: Meg had already left.

“She doesn’t like wasting time,” Andrea explained, almost as if she was apologizing for her.

“No kidding,” Claire said, and she snatched the last sandwich from Castiel’s plate.

 

* * *

 

The stables received him with the familiar smell of leather and fresh hay. Like everything there, it seemed to be bigger than everything Castiel had known, and each of the horses had enough place in their respective stalls to lie down if they chose to do so. He took to steps inside when a muzzle immediately came to rest in his shoulder.

“Hello, again,” he greeted the chestnut mare. “This time I’ve brought you something.”

He took an apple piece from his shirt and offered it to her. Her hot breath ghosted in his palm when she picked it up. The foal also looked up to see what was going on and Castiel approached him with another piece. The foal narrowed his eyes at him with suspicion, but he accepted the treat.

The other horses were also looking at him, perhaps wondering what he was doing, exactly. Castiel counted three more heads, all of them following his every move.

“I’m going to be your new trainer,” he told them. “I really hope we can all get along…”

“Are you in the use of giving the animals long explanations they can’t understand?”

Castiel startled and turned around. Meg was standing right at the stable’s door, looking at him with a crooked eyebrow. Castiel couldn’t tell if she was amused or annoyed by his actions.

“I’ve found out sometimes it’s soothing for them,” he explained, scratching his neck. “It helps them getting used to being around people they don’t know.”

Meg narrowed her eyes, like Castiel had just said something completely strange.

“Well, at least _Persephone_ seems to like you,” she pointed out.

The chestnut was sniffing Castiel like she suspected he was keeping more apples from her.

“ _Persephone_ , huh? Nice to meet you,” he said, patting her muzzle. “What’s her foal’s name?”

“He’s only two months old,” Meg replied. “We haven’t decided yet.”

Castiel was going to ask what they were waiting for, but he decided to keep quiet. He had the impression there was a lot of delicate issues it was better he didn’t bring up, like the fact Meg apparently rode her own horses instead of hiring another jockey.

“And this boy right here?” Castiel asked, moving onto the dapple grey and offering him a bit of apple as well.

“ _Zeus’ Lightning_ ,” Meg replied. “He’s gelded and very gentle.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Castiel said. The gelding closed his eyes with pleasure when he received his petting.

“These two are our broodmares, along with _Percy_ … _Persephone_ ,” she corrected herself, as if it was something wrong to call a horse by a nickname instead of their name. “ _Calypso_ is _Zeus_ ’ mother,” she explained, pointing at a white mare. Her swollen belly made her movements slow, but she still accepted Castiel’s treat with grace.

“How far long is she?”

“Six months,” Meg said. “Amy… Dr. Richardson, our vet, she says it’s probably going to be a big foal. And this is _Satrina_ ,” she added, moving on to the last horse in the stables. “She’s an old lady. She had her last foal a year and a half ago, and Amelia warned us having another would be dangerous, so we neutered her.”

“Hello, miss,” Castiel greeted her, offering her his last piece of apple. _Satrina_ was an impressive black horse, with hair so bright it almost reflected the scare light coming in through the wood. In fact, it was obvious all the horses were primed up and brushed obsessively. Castiel wondered if it was Benny who did that or if Meg took care of it personally. “Very nice to meet you,” he added after _Satrina_ had smelled his hand and accepted the treat.

Deep in his heart, Castiel felt relieved. He had though the work that awaited him was going to be a lot more complicated, but all the horses seemed mellow and friendly. He’d only have to train _Persephone_ ’s and _Calypso_ ’s foals, and that would take some time, so he would have the chance to get used to the ranch’s rhythm and learn about racehorses and…

“There’s one more you need to meet,” Meg said. “Follow me.”

Castiel turned around to ask why that horse wasn’t in the stables with the rest, but Meg was already striding out and he had to hurry to keep up with her.

“Do you have any idea how much it costs to artificially inseminate a mare with frozen dead stallion’s sperm?” she asked.

“Uh…”

“Triple what it costs to just rent someone’s stallion,” Meg replied, like Castiel’s interjection had not been there at all. She stopped by a fenced paddock and sighed. “I invested my freaking last dime on it, and it got _Satrina_ ’s uterus trashed.”

“Why didn’t you just rent a stallion then?” Castiel asked, deducing that was how _Persephone_ and _Calypso_ had got pregnant.

“Because this wasn’t any dead stallion,” Meg explained. “He was my dad’s favorite. And in my opinion, we got our money’s worth for it.”

A loud neighing invaded the air, followed by the clattering of four strong legs against the ground, coming their way at such speed Castiel had the instinctive need to run. But the horse stopped a few inches from the fence, bucking and shaking his head, his mane floating in the air.

Castiel stared at him, opened mouthed. The black horse was still very young, evidenced by his spirit and his aggressiveness, by he was already very tall and fast. And he wasn’t entirely black: in the middle of his forehead, right between his eyes, there was a four point white star.

Castiel turned his boss. Meg had a glimmer of pride in her eyes.

“Novak, I want you to meet _Morningstar_ ,” she said. “ _Morningstar the Third_.”


	2. The Mark of a Champion

“So, what do you think?”

Castiel was still too astonished by the colt’s majesty to come up with anything ingenious to say.

“Uh… I should have brought another apple,” he muttered, lamely.

“Not a good idea,” Meg replied. “He’d bite your hand off if you tried to feed it to him.”

The horse pranced around the fence, occasionally throwing hostile glares in their direction, as if he was warning them that coming any closer would have dire consequences for them. Castiel wholeheartedly believed Meg’s warning.

“He’s beautiful,” he said, because he obviously was expecting some sort of compliment for the horse.

“He’s also wicked fast,” Meg replied. “I would show it to you, but he already threw me to the ground today and my ribs still ache.”

Castiel remembered the green stain in her shirt and deduced she had fallen and rolled over to avoid being trampled by the colt.

“Is he not…?”

“Oh, he’s just stubborn,” Meg said, like she was talking about a toddler throwing a tantrum. “I should have known. He has his father’s character.”

_Morningstar_ neighed again, like he resented that accusation.

“So you can ride him…”

“Yes, but I can’t get him to do what I want,” Meg explained. “That’s exactly it. He’s used to the bridles and the chair by now, but he doesn’t like it when someone tries to direct him. He won’t listen to me, turn when he has to or speed up when I tell him to. He also doesn’t play well with others, so he has his own little place here instead of going inside with the rest, like a goddamned diva. Which is going to be a problem, because I can’t have him trying to bite others mid-race. And before you ask, I refuse to castrate him. When people see what he can do, they’re going to beg me to have his babies.”

Castiel felt a rush of panic shaking his body. It was apparent that he wasn’t going to have much time to learn the tricks of the trade after all.

“Miss Masters, there’s something you should know,” he said, nervously. “I had never worked with racehorses before; I’ve only worked with them in equine assisted therapy…”

“I know,” Meg cut him off. “Do you really think Benny would have hired you if I haven’t given the green light?”

She started walking back to the house before Castiel had time to register that answer. He had to run after her again and he started wondering if his entire time working there was going to be that way.

“But…”

“I specifically asked Benny to look for someone outside the circuit,” she continued explaining. “You see, Novak, the Morningstar ranch has a bit of a bad reputation.”

“Why?”

“So when our previous trainer left, I was sure no one who had heard about us would come to work for me,” Meg said, completely disregarding Castiel’s question. “And trust me when your name popped up, I had my doubts. I still have doubts. What can a therapist do for my horses? But I guess beggars can’t be choosers,” she concluded as they reached the main house’s door. “And so, here you are.”

They stopped there, Castiel at lost for words one more time. Was she insulting him? Telling him he wasn’t good enough a trainer and she had only hired him because she had no other choice? What was he supposed to answer to that? She was looking at him with a little smirk in her lips and it frustrated him to no end that she would just up and say he was some sort of mediocre last resort.

“That’s quite a career change, by the way,” she commented after it became obvious Castiel wasn’t going to say anything. “What motivated it?”

“I would rather not discuss my reasons,” Castiel replied. He didn’t say it just because he was scorned, however. They were a lot of factors that had weighed in in his decision. His eyes shifted towards the cottage, and he wondered if Claire had already returned there or if she would still be in the house.

“Fair enough,” Meg shrugged. When Castiel continued not to say anything, she clicked her tongue. “Look, I know you’re entirely out of your element, but I really couldn’t care less. I have a half broken colt of the best breed and the race season starts in three months. I’m not asking you to help me win the stupid Triple Crown or anything like that. I just want a couple of victories to keep the ranch afloat for another year and show _Morningstar_ off. That’s all. So I need you to tell me right now: do you think you can manage that?”

She almost made it sound like a challenge. There were a lot of questions Castiel wanted to ask, like why another year? What was so terrible about the ranch that no other trainer wanted to work there? Why had Meg asked Claire if she liked horses?

But he swallowed up all his doubts and squared his shoulders. She was still waiting for an answer.

“Yes,” he said. “I can definitely help you with that.”

“Great,” she replied, the little smirk in her lips becoming a full on grin. “Now, if you’re planning on going to the town to buy groceries, I suggest you do it now. They close the stores early, and I’m sure there’ll be lots of folks who’d want to stop you and ask you a bunch of questions.”

She turned around and headed for the door, but Castiel still felt like he had something to add.

“Thank you for the opportunity,” he said. It came out a lot more sarcastic than he intended, but if Meg noticed, she chose not to comment on it.

“You’re welcome,” she replied. “Don’t go to bed too late. I like to start early.”

She punctuated that last sentence by closing the door behind her.

Castiel found Claire in her room, lying on her stomach in the bare mattress and reading _The Hobbit_. It must have been the fifth or sixth time he’d seen her do it.

“Grocery shopping,” he said, because when she was reading she only registered the most essential and simple phrases.

“Okay, have fun,” she replied, turning the page around.

Castiel knew there was no way to argue with her verbally, so he stepped into the room and grabbed her bag.

“Hey, that’s private!” she protested, as soon as she noticed.

“I don’t think you quite understood me,” Castiel replied, throwing the first of the money hoodies he could fish out of the bag. “You’re coming with me.”

“Why?” Claire groaned.

Castiel resisted the urge to use the “Because I say so” clause.

“Because if you don’t come, I’ll just buy a cheap brand of coffee without even reading the label and you’ll be stuck drinking until it runs out,” he said instead and threw the hoodie at her.

Claire stared at him, open-mouthed and offended before she grabbed the hoodie and sat up. Castiel didn’t know how someone could tie their shoes that angrily, but he should have known by then that Claire had her anger down to an art.

“And when we come back, you’re making your bed.”

“Don’t push your luck,” she said.

 

* * *

 

Finding the turn to the town was easy. Despite Claire’s mockery and skepticism, he only missed it once. The second time, he found it just fine.

“See? It wasn’t that hard.”

“Good for you, Castiel,” Claire said. “And it only took you half of the little gasoline you had left.”

Castiel had to begrudgingly admit she had a point there.

Luckily for them, there was a Gas-N'-Sip right on the first street, tended to by a blonde woman who fussed over her crying baby for five minutes before paying attention to them.

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry," she said, when the kid finally gave her a break so she could charge them. "She's been restless lately."

"It's okay," Castiel guaranteed. "How old is she?"

"Six months," she replied with a tired smile. Despite the dark bags under her eyes, she was a very beautiful woman. The tag over her chest indicated her name was Nora. "She's adorable though," she added, a little like she was trying to convince herself of it.

Claire approached the counter with a bag of chips right in time to hear that last part.

"Trust me, she'll stop being so adorable in seventeen years or so," she said, again imitating Castiel's cadence, as if that was something he would say. He resented that.

"You're still adorable," he replied. "Even if your entire shtick consists on making people think you’re not."

Claire huffed and rolled her, which must have been funny for Nora, because she chuckled.

"Are you just passing or...?"

"We've just moved, in fact," Castiel said. "I'm working at the Morningstar ranch..."

"Oh."

Nora didn't stop smiling, but Castiel noticed there was a certain tension around her mouth that wasn't there before. Also, she stopped making comments about her baby or asking them anything. She quickly scanned their items and told them the total, like she wanted them out of the store as quickly as possible despite them being the only clients there.

“You can find the mini-market if you follow the main street and then turn left in the third street,” she indicated them when they asked her about it. “Have a good evening.”

She didn’t sound sincere.

“Did she look a little tense to you?” Castiel asked.

“She looked like she hasn’t slept well in days because babies cry at random hours of the night,” Claire pointed out. “I’d be a little tense too.”

“You’d be homicidal,” Castiel said, because he had seen Claire without her morning coffee enough times to know it for sure. She shrugged in agreement.

Northeast Haven, Connecticut, was a sleepy little town lost between green hills and a river that ran north of the town. At least that was what Castiel could find out about it before they moved there and the description seemed to be accurate as far as he could tell. The sun hadn’t gone down yet and the streets already looked pretty empty, as if everybody had collectively decided to tuck in early that day.

The mini-market was a bit more crowded, full of people that had obviously just come out of work and were rushing to get what they needed before the store closed. In that crowd, Castiel and Claire didn’t stand out too much, but he still felt the sting of curious looks on the back of his head while he filled their cart.

“Oh, come on,” Claire groaned, staring at the two coffee brands they had. “How do these people even live like this?”

“Maybe they can because they’re not caffeine addicts at seventeen,” Castiel sighed. “Just pick one and let’s go, please.”

Claire narrowed her eyes at him, but she left the coffee she didn’t want back on the shelf where it belonged before storming off.

“Where are you going?”

“To find the cheese balls,” Claire replied without even looking over her shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be eating that much junk!” Castiel said, in vain. She was probably going to find them and bring back at least five of them. Honestly, Claire’s eating habits were beginning to worry him. He had noticed she had put on a little weight in the last few months, but he didn’t want to comment on it.

“Teenagers, huh?” a man with a red flannel shirt who had witnessed the exchange commented. “I can’t keep my boy away from the burgers.”

“Well, at least you know he’s eating some iron,” Castiel sighed and the guy laughed.

“Hi, I’m Dean Winchester,” he introduced himself, offering his hand to him.

“Castiel Novak,” he replied. “We just moved here.”

“I figured,” Dean said. “Small town, we all know each other.”

Castiel didn’t know exactly what to answer to that, so he just gave him a compromising smile and looked around for the next item on his list. But it turned out Dean was one of those curious folks Meg had warned him about.

“So what’s your story?” he asked. “How did you end up in the pacific Northeast Haven?”

He said it like it was something that happened a lot, people just “ending up” in that town for one reason or the other.

“Well, I’ve got a new job and I decided a change of scenery would be good for us,” Castiel said, because that was the short version of the story. “So… here we are.”

“Awesome,” Dean said. “Where are you working?”

This time Castiel took his time to watch his interlocutor’s face carefully. Meg had mentioned they had a bad reputation, Nora had got all tongue-tied suddenly, what effect would it have on Dean?

“The Morningstar Ranch. I’m the new horse trainer.”

“Oh,” Dean said, much in the same way Nora had. His smile wavered a little, but didn’t disappear. “Uh… well, welcome to the town.”

“Thank you,” Castiel said and when Dean turned around to leave, he couldn’t help but to add: “Is there a problem?”

Dean blinked, a little disconcerted, but he still sounded polite when he said:

“No, no problem at all. Why would there be?”

“Well, I have noticed people around here don’t seem particularly fond of the ranch,” Castiel explained. “Is there any reason for that?”

Dean tilted his head, his green eyes opening wide in surprise.

“Woah, you really don’t know?”

Before he could elaborate, Claire appeared around the corner, with an extra-large bag of cheese balls in her hand.

“Now we can go,” she said, simply. She threw a glare in Dean’s direction, but she didn’t comment on his presence.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to finish your shopping,” Dean said. Castiel bit the inside of his cheek, unsatisfied, and Dean seemed to notice, because he added: “Hey, you could come grab some beers at the Roadhouse one of these nights. That’s where we usually gather up, you know… you could get to know folks around here, get them to know you.”

He didn’t say it, but Castiel thought that was an implicit promise to tell him exactly what was going on with Morningstar.

“I appreciate that,” he said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Dean replied. “See you around.”

Castiel remembered Sheriff Mills all of the sudden and he realized Dean had been the second person to recommend he visited the Roadhouse. It must have really been a popular spot.

“Really? We just got here,” Claire complained.

Usually Castiel knew where she was coming from, even if he didn’t agree with her, but this time, her comment completely caught him off guard. He turned to look at her with a frown of confusion.

“You can’t be all social and shit when we just got here,” Claire explained, in the condescending tone that indicated Castiel ought to know that. “People will think you’re easy.”

“I am an easy person to get along with,” Castiel protested.

“Oh, sure. If by ‘easy’, you mean totally clueless,” Claire shrugged.

“You’re being argumentative and hostile for no reason.”

“Yep. That’s my entire shtick.”

She started putting the groceries on the counter with a very satisfied smirk. It took Castiel another ten seconds to realize she was messing with him.

“Oh, that’s very funny,” he said, rolling his eyes while Claire burst into laughter. “Yes, very funny indeed. You’re hilarious, Claire.”

“Of course I am,” she replied. “You just don’t have a sense of humor.”

The cashier looked at them with a smile on his lips as he scanned their items. Castiel didn’t know what he thought, but suddenly, he felt like smiling as well. Claire continued to poke him and banter with him all the way back to Morningstar, and for the first time in a long time, Castiel felt like they were a family again

 

* * *

 

When moving to a new place and starting a new job, growing pains were expected. Castiel didn’t fool himself and he tried to be prepared for it. Despite Meg’s warnings, he had borrowed Claire’s laptop and stayed up late reading about racehorses and the proper training for them, kicking himself for not doing it before. In his defense, he had thought the previous trainer would still be there to show him the ropes. He had imagined a gentle old man at the edge of retirement that would patiently (if a bit condescendingly) explain to him everything he needed to know and get him used to the rhythm of the ranch. It had been naïve on his part and now he was alone against a challenge he had no idea how to tackle.

Surfing the net was a difficult process, because, as Claire put it so elegantly, “the connection was slow as all fuck”. He still found a couple of books that he probably would’ve been able to find back in New York, but he doubted the local library of that sleepy little town had them. He still wrote down the names and the authors, because he was an optimist like that.

After Claire had finished her movie and went to sleep, he got up to put the kettle on the stove and make himself tea. The inhabitants of the main house (as he was starting to think about them) had already gone to bed. Andrea had come around earlier to ask if they’d found everything they needed in the town’s market and that had been the last contact they’d had that day with them. Tom Masters was apparently still a no show, because they hadn’t seen or heard another car rolling towards the garage before Benny secured the gates and the front door.

It was a little bit lonely around there. Claire was right: having all that space for so few people was strange to say the least, and the attitude of the town’s folks just added a layer of mystery to the place.

Castiel poured his tea and sat down in front of the laptop, with a feeling in his gut that he hadn’t thought this through. He hadn’t read up on the ranch before coming there, assuming it wasn’t a famous place that he should know about, but apparently, he had been naïve on that front too.

Searching “Morningstar” alone didn’t help much, but “Morningstar + horses + ranch” did spout out some results. It turned there had been a _Morningstar_ , a beautiful black thoroughbred with a distinctive four point star in his forehead that had come very close to win the Triple Crown. He’d won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, but not the Belmont Stakes despite being a favorite. One of the owners, Luc Masters (alias “Lucifer” due to his ruthlessness. Cute) had then bought the horse from his partners, bought a ranch and named him after his winning stallion. _Morningstar_ had a son, who also bore his distinctive mark. _Morningstar, Jr_., had also been a favorite and won several important races. He’d fathered some foals, although none with the signature star. Azazel Masters (who named their kid like that?) had in turned inherited the ranch and upon his passing, less than three years before, left it to his two children, Megan (certified jockey) and Thomas Masters.

After the second _Morningstar’_ s passing, however, the ranch hadn’t won a lot of races, apparently. Castiel found _Zeus_ ’ and _Satrina_ ’s names at the top of a couple of lists, but never in first place. _Morningstar the Third_ wasn’t mentioned anywhere, perhaps because he hadn’t raced yet or perhaps because Meg wanted to keep his existence a secret until he was ready. Castiel imagined him having the mark was a huge deal that signaled him as the heir of a true champion. Or something like that.

He closed the laptop and rubbed his temples. It had been a couple of hours since he’d started his investigation. His tea had gone cold, forgotten dangerously close to his elbow. Castiel threw it down the sink, brushed his teeth and checked that there was no light coming through the crack of Claire’s door. That didn’t mean she wasn’t reading in her cellphone, hiding under the sheets so he wouldn’t see the glowing, but he decided to ignore that possibility just this once. After all, it was summer and she didn’t have to go to school. He thought he needed to encourage her to find a job or make new friends around town, so she wouldn’t spend all her time locked up in there while he was busy.

He took off his clothes and stood next to the window to look at the house one last time. It looked darkened and still, like a sleeping giant resting their bones after a long day. A dog (maybe _Cerberus_ ) barked at the air in the distance, but stopped soon after and the ranch seemed a bit quieter by contrast.

Castiel wondered if the horses were sleeping in their little boxes, if _Persephone_ ’s foal had his little head leaned against his mother’s back, and if _Morningstar_ was resting on his fenced paddock, or still pacing around proud and defiant, showing the sky he was as dark as her and he, too, had a star to make him brighter.


	3. The First Race

A woodpecker was banging on his head, over and over and over. Castiel groaned and raised his hand to scare it away but there were two things wrong with his theory: one, there was no way a woodpecker had just flown into his room and decided his head looked like a nice trunk. And second, the woodpecker was telling him to get up.

“Come on, your boss is here and this is all really embarrassing.”

“What boss?” Castiel asked, but then his half asleep brain started to make sense out of things. The woodpecker had the exact same voice as Claire. He opened his eyes with a jolt. “Wait, why is Daphne here?”

“Not Daphne,” Claire replied, her annoyed face hovering over him. “Masters.”

“Masters?” Castiel repeated, and then, finally, he woke up entirely and sat up so fast he would have hit Claire if she hadn’t had the hindsight of moving out of the way. “What is she doing here?”

“Looking for you, dumbass!”

“Language!” Castiel scolded her and looked around, trying to put his thoughts in order. “What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock in the morning,” Claire said. “And let the record show, I don’t appreciate being awake at a functional hour during the summer…”

“Get out of here, I need to change,” Castiel interrupted her. He had been about to stand up, but then he’d remembered he only had his boxers on because it had been so damn hot the night before.

“Ugh, fine,” Claire protested. “But what do I tell her?”

“Tell her I’ll be right there. And that’ll be a lot faster if you get out of my room now!”

Claire threw her hands in the air and left closing the door behind her with a little more force than it was necessary. Castiel knew he should have taken some time the day before to put his clothes in order, because now he was frantically searching for a passable shirt and all he managed to grab were the ugly, holey ones he used to hang at home on Sundays. Because he had packed those last. No, he hadn’t really thought that through.

In the end, he showed up to his new kitchen/living room in the same jeans he was wearing the day before and a red flannel shirt he had to fish from the very bottom of his bag. He didn’t even bother squashing his hair and he knew it’d be sticking out in every possible direction, but honestly, that was the last thing Masters was going to scream at him for.

To his surprise, Claire had managed to be a good impromptu host. The kettle was on the stove, the toaster was working and Meg was sitting in their kitchen, with her legs crossed and a glass of water in front of her while she listened attentively (or at least pretended to do so) to something Claire was telling her.

“So, yeah, I’d totally be interested in keeping one, if that’s okay…”

“Well, _Lila_ is a German Sheppard,” Meg replied, with a shrug. “We’re not sure about the father, but the pups are going to grow big either way. You should ask your uncle about it.”

“Oh, he agrees,” Claire said, and turned her gaze towards with a smile that was just daring him to contradict her. “Don’t you, Uncle Cas?”

Of course, in front of people, he was always ‘Uncle Cas’.

“Oh, yes, sure,” he muttered, thoughtlessly. “Miss Masters, I’m really sorry…”

“Told you I wanted to start early, Novak,” she interrupted, with a voice so cold the temperature suddenly dropped a few degrees.

“Yes, you did,” Castiel admitted. “But I wasn’t sure what you meant by early…”

“I wake up at five,” she cut him off. “I exercise, I have breakfast, and I’m ready to ride by seven thirty. I expect my trainer to be at the stables around the same time. We let the horses out so they can run and pasture, we start training with the colt and soon the foals too, and then you and Benny will help me feed them and groom them so they can get used to your presence. That’s what I meant by early.”

Castiel bit his tongue not to lash out at her she could have told him all that the day before.

“Understood,” he said instead. “It won’t happen again.”

“I sure hope so,” Meg said, with a smirk that was completely mirthless. “Have a good breakfast. We eat lunch late.”

She stood up and in two energetic strides, she was out of the cottage. The bread from the toaster jumped up.

“Woah, bitch alert much?” Claire commented, getting up. For one delusional second, Castiel had the idea she was going to put the toasts in a plate and ask him if he wanted butter, but instead she wandered past him on her way to her room.

“Where are you going?”

“To sleep until six in the afternoon,” she answered, with a tone that clearly meant ‘ _Try and stop me_ ’.

Castiel wasn’t about to. He already had too many things going on.

At eight thirty three he left the cabin with the coffee sloshing around in his stomach and a piece of toast trapped in his throat. He was disoriented for a second, because the previous day he had arrived to the stables after leaving the main house through the back door, but he eventually came upon them. He wasn’t surprised to find the only horse that remained around was _Calypso_ , who was too heavy to run and had decided to eat the grass around the stables without exhausting herself too much.

“Hello, girl,” he greeted her. _Calypso_ didn’t recognize him, because she narrowed her eyes at him and then slowly trotted away. Great. Even the horses were giving him a hard time that day.

He found Meg by _Morningstar_ ’s fence, leaning on it and trying to lure the horse to saddle him.

“You’re going to have to come closer eventually,” she told him when he walked past her throwing her a scornful sideways glance. “You have to eat, whether you like or not.”

Castiel decided not to comment on the fact one of the first things Meg had mocked about him was that he gave the horses long-winded explanations. Instead, he cleared his throat loudly enough for her to hear.

“Ah, Novak, finally,” she said, looking over her shoulder with an expression on her face that could measure up to _Morningstar_ ’s in pure contempt. “Let’s see if you have more luck with him.”

Castiel looked at the fence and at the horse, who had stopped his prancing around to stare at him with his ears standing to attention, like he was defying Castiel to jump over it and see how that worked out for him.

“What approach did your old trainer use?” he asked. “Just… out of curiosity.”

“She distracted him with food while Benny saddle him up,” Meg said. “But I don’t want that to be a two persons’ job anymore.”

“Right.”

He approached the fence a little more. _Morningstar_ shook his head, warning him to back off, and Castiel should have probably done that, except that Meg was watching his every move with a crooked eyebrow. He wasn’t eager to find out what failure in front of her eyes would mean for him.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Kids and horses,” he remembered Daphne saying. “You can’t let them know you’re scared of them.”

He passed a foot over the fence and then the other. _Morningstar_ had both his eyes on him, almost like he was wondering what was this tiny human going to do now in presence of his majesty. Castiel extended his hand towards him and the colt stepped backwards, almost like he was getting ready to charge towards him. Castiel felt his heart pounding loudly in his chest as he took another step. He was more than certain than this animal was willing and able to run him over and do as much harm to him as it was possible if he so much dared to blink wrongly at him.

“It’s fine,” he said. He didn’t know if he was talking to _Morningstar_ or to himself. “It’s okay.”

 _Morningstar_ stepped backwards… and then charged at him head first.

Castiel’s first instinct was to turn around and run for his life, but even if he had, he hadn’t been able to run fast enough. Instead, he spread his feet to plant himself firmer on the ground and lifted his hand in the universal gesture of rendition, waiting for the impact of the colt’s body against his.

It never came. _Morningstar_ stopped just a few inches short in front of his face, so close Castiel could feel his hot breath in his face. The horse huffed, obviously frustrated he hadn’t been able to scare him away and turned around to give Castiel a slap with his tail.

“Very mature,” Castiel protested. “Bring it on. I have a moody teenager.”

 _Morningstar_ went back again and pranced around some more, like he was completely ignoring Castiel, but every few steps he moved his head to check if he was still there. He charged again, though not as fast this time, and again stopped short of pushing him. Castiel remained right where he was, inching towards the spot on the fence where Meg had left the saddle and the bridles.

“Are you ready to behave now?” Castiel asked, crooking an eyebrow. “Or are you just going to keep being difficult?”

 _Morningstar_ shook his head, neighing angrily. When Castiel tried to take a step towards him with the bridle in hand, the colt started bucking and standing on its rear legs, trying once again to scare Castiel off. Castiel moved only to stay out of his line of attack, the bridle still in his hand.

“Is this supposed to be progress?” Meg asked, and Castiel gritted his teeth to avoid shouting at her that he was the one who was risking getting trampled to death.

“He’ll tire himself out,” he said, moving aside when he saw _Morningstar_ was running towards him again. “Eventually.”

Yes, it was bound to happen. But he hadn’t counted on _Morningstar_ having that much stamina, because his fit was several minutes longer than any of the horses he had worked with before. And worse of all: he was clever. He had noticed Castiel wouldn’t budge if he charged towards him head-on, so he started going for the flanks, throwing kicks that sometimes missed him by inches and forcing him to move along the fence to avoid him. Castiel could feel the sweat from his own nervousness sliding down his back, but he forced himself to focus on _Morningstar_ , focus on the movement of his legs, of his ear, his muzzle. Meg had said he had been saddled up before, so Castiel believed her diagnosis was correct: he was just being difficult now.

By the time _Morningstar_ started to calm down, his jumps become less energetic, his pace not as fast as before, Castiel’s shirt was wet and stuck to his body, his hands hurt from squeezing the bridle so tight to keep his composure and the back of his head itched because of the mid-morning sun. But finally, finally, _Morningstar_ kicked the ground a couple of times with his hind leg and lowered his head, like he had accepted his destiny.

Castiel still approached him very slowly. The colt had already proven to be devilishly smart and he wasn’t eager to get kicked in the face that particular day.

“There you go,” Castiel muttered as he slid the bridle over his head. “Aren’t things easier when you just cooperate?”

 _Morningstar_ glared at him and Castiel could have sworn there was deep rancor in his eyes. Castiel grabbed the bridle, without turning his back on him, and gave a gentle nudge, expecting the colt to follow him…

 _Morningstar_ planted his legs on the ground and stared at him, without moving an inch.

“Are you for real?” Castiel asked.

“Told you he was stubborn,” Meg commented. She had decided to sit on top of a pile of hay and was watching her fingernails like they were the most interesting things in the world.

She had said that .What she hadn’t told him was that the damn colt was going to be stubborn every single step of the way. Castiel tried pulling gently again, then a little more forcefully, then walking around him one, two, three times. It was no use. _Morningstar_ refused to be lead. No matter what Castiel did, the colt couldn’t be bothered to move an inch, apparently.

“How’s it going?” Benny asked somewhere at his back.

“It’s been over an hour,” Meg replied, with a calmed, condescending tone. “This has to be a new record.”

“Should I bring the carrots?”

“No,” Castiel groaned. “We can’t reward him for negative behavior.”

“He’s a horse, not a dog,” Meg huffed. “I don’t think he’s going to care.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Masters, did you hire me to do my job or not?” Castiel asked, taking his eyes off the horse for two seconds to look at her.

Meg opened her mouth, indignant, and she was to answer something, but the tension of the bridle in Castiel’s hand grew laxer, and when he looked again, he noticed _Morningstar_ had taken two steps towards him. The moment Castiel paid attention to him again, he froze. Castiel frowned and tilted his head.

“Hey, you’re not going to stay hired much longer if you talk to me like that,” Meg was shouting at him. “Are you listening to me…?”

Castiel shushed her. _Morningstar_ was gazing away, like he hadn’t really meant to move at all and was embarrassed Castiel had noticed.

“Did you just…?”

“Yes, yes I did,” Castiel replied, looking over his shoulder again, deliberately this time.

Meg’s cheeks were red with anger and she was opening her mouth, probably to shout at him and remind him who the boss was… but she went completely quiet when she noticed what was going on: step by step, Castiel was leading Morningstar to the fence’s gate. The trick, apparently, was to not look at the colt directly while he pulled from the bridle.

“Would you look at that?” Benny commented. “Kiddo just has stage fright.”

Castiel would have laughed as well if Meg hadn’t glared at him like she would rip his throat out if he even dared.

“Good,” she admitted, reluctant. “Now we have to get the saddle on him and get him to let me ride him.”

Castiel was almost tempted to ask how hard that could be, but he was pretty sure that would be tempting his luck. Not that things turned out spectacularly just because he _didn’t_ say it.

 _Morningstar_ shuddered and tried to rebel again when he felt the weight of the saddle over him, but he seemed to understand that, having reached that point, there wasn’t much he could do. He stood mostly still while Benny adjusted the cinch. Every time he started getting nervous, Castiel would click his tongue, turn his back on him and make him walk a few steps until he was calm again.

“Okay, I think we’re ready,” Benny declared. “That had to be the fastest we’ve managed to saddle up this bad boy.”

He was obviously satisfied, but Meg looked almost disappointed, like she had half-expected Castiel to fail just because of how late he had been that morning

“Okay, then,” she said. “Here comes the hardest part.”

The moment she raised a leg to jump over the fence, _Morningstar_ became agitated again, stomping on the floor and trying to escape from Castiel’s grip.

“Wait, hold on,” Castiel tried to say. “I don’t think he’s ready for that. Maybe we should just let him have the chair for a while and then…”

“Nonsense,” Meg said, with a dismissive gesture. “He has to know that having the saddle on means there will be someone riding him sooner rather than later.”

Castiel watched her stick her foot on the stirrup and prop herself up with incredible agility. He was beginning to wonder if she really wanted him there to train the horse or if she just wanted him to be the one to get kicked in the head while they waited for _Morningstar_ to calm down.

The colt shook his mane again and stepped backwards when he felt Meg’s weight on him.

“Perhaps we should…”

“Give me the reins,” Meg snapped, obviously losing what little patience she had for Castiel’s hesitation. “And Benny, open the gate.”

“Sure thing,” Benny sighed, like he had seen what was about to happen many times and wasn’t in the mood to see it again.

Castiel soon understood why.

As soon as the gate creaked over its hinges, _Morningstar_ ’s ears shot up and next thing Castiel knew, he was falling backwards because the colt had pushed him out of the way so fast his hooves barely seemed to graze the ground. Benny barely had time to get out of the way to avoid a similar fate before _Morningstar_ bolted past him and into the open yard.

Well, Meg had been right about one thing: the colt was wicked fast. In the blink of an eye, horse and rider had become nothing but a vague black stain in the horizon.

“Oh, shit,” Castiel muttered under his breath. He jumped up and started running before he realized there was absolutely no way in Hell he was going to catch up to them.

He thought fast: _Calypso_ wouldn’t fit in the saddle, _Persephone_ would refuse to leave her foal’s side and _Satrina_ was too old. He looked around for _Zeus_ and found him chewing the ground and looking at the whole spectacle with mild amusement.

“Do we have another saddle?”

“Yeah, a couple. Why?” Benny asked. “Are you going after them?”

Instead of stating the obvious, Castiel ran inside the stables and took one of the spare bridles of the wall.

“Wait, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Benny asked, when Castiel was already hallway into adjusting the cinch and the flanks. “Meg doesn’t like it when someone gets in her way.”

“I’ll make sure to stay out of her way, then,” Castiel said, while _Zeus_ obediently bit the bridle. “But I’m not leaving her alone with _Morningstar_.”

He threw his leg over the dapple grey and Benny shrugged.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn ya’.”

 _Zeus_ demonstrated his past as a racing horse the moment Castiel kicked his flank gently: he sprinted so fast Castiel got whiplashed and needed a minute to adjust his body to the velocity. They reached a hill way behind the paddock and he stopped the horse at the top. Meg and _Morningstar_ were still far away, but they seemed to be getting back around if the direction of the cloud of dust was anything to go by. Castiel took another second to admire the colt’s speed and then set _Zeus_ running again towards them.

And they wouldn’t have been able to catch up to them if _Morningstar_ hadn’t seen them coming and taken a turn so sharp it was amazing Meg managed to stay on top of him. Castiel squeezed his legs around _Zeus_ prompting him to go faster until they were almost running on pair with them.

“Meg!” he called her when they were close, forgetting for a second he was supposed to treat her with respect.

She didn’t hear him or if she did, she ignored him. There was an expression of triumph in her face, an almost manic ecstasy, like she was already about to reach a finish line only she could see. Castiel shouted at her again as _Zeus_ slowed down because he couldn’t keep up, and this time, Meg bothered to quickly look at him before shouting back:

“Out of the way, Novak!”

In the split second that took her to do that, _Morningstar_ changed directions again, so abruptly Meg couldn’t hold on this time. Castiel’s heart skipped a beat when he saw her slipping down, and he pulled _Zeus_ bridle so harshly he feared he might have hurt the poor’s gelding mouth. But that was better than having him stampede all over the boss.

And then it was all over. Meg was on the ground, groaning in pain, and _Morningstar_ was trotting away, dragging the bridles on the ground, useless and abandoned.

Castiel dismounted in a single jump and strode towards Meg, his heart pounding mad because of the race and the fear that Meg might be hurt badly. But she was already standing up, slowly, so at least she was alive.

“Are you alright?” he asked, grabbing her by the arm to help her to her feet.

Meg shot him a furious glare and stepped away brusquely.

“Why did you have to do that?” she screamed at him. “I almost had it!”

Castiel was disconcerted for one second before anger also overcame him.

“Are you insane?” he asked. “That horse was out of control!”

“Yeah, because you didn’t give me enough time to get to control him!”

“Because I was afraid you would fall and break your neck!”

“Well, I fell and I didn’t break my neck!” she pointed out, like she deserved some sort of prize for it. “So now what?”

“Now what?!” Castiel repeated, both because he was completely baffled by her reaction and because he didn’t have a good answer for that question.

“Ugh,” Meg groaned, angrily. She massaged her temples, like she couldn’t believe she had to deal with everything there. “Now you go catch my colt and bring him back to the paddock. We’re done today.”

And without any warning, she walked past him, jumped on _Zeus_ and rode away before Castiel could even react.

And now he was standing in the middle of the field, so far away from the main house it looked like a doll’s palace from that distance and no idea where _Morningstar_ had gone. With a sigh of exasperation, he started walking around, but luckily for him, _Satrina_ trotted gently towards him, with Benny riding her.

“Told you she wasn’t going to take it well,” he commented. Castiel didn’t know if he had heard them screaming at each other or if he’d just deduced what happened by the look on his face.

“Does she always try to commit suicide by horse or is it something special about Thursdays?” Castiel groaned. Benny chuckled and extended a hand to him so Castiel could prop himself up on _Satrina_ ’s flank.

“Oh, today she took it easy,” he commented. “I’ve seen her get everything from those falls, from broken nails to a dislocated shoulder. She always gets back up again right away. I think she just takes the saying too literally.”

“Great,” Castiel sighed. He didn’t think he could handle another day like that, but apparently he was going to have to wrap his head around the fact this was his life now. “And how are we supposed to catch _Morningstar_?”

“There’s a little meadow he likes to hang out at when he’s left to roam,” Benny informed him. “He’s probably there bullying _Percy_ ’s kid.”

Castiel gritted his teeth. He should also probably start at least establishing some foundation training on that foal or else they were going to end with another unbroken colt by the next year. If he was still there next year.

“There he is now,” Benny pointed out at a group of trees near a streak. _Morningstar_ was trying to pasture despite the bridle, and although he glared at Castiel when he approached him, it was obvious by the sweat glistening on his dark body he was finally too tired to run away anywhere.

“Good thing he didn’t jump the creek,” Benny commented while Castiel started the tedious process of having _Morningstar_ follow him. “We would’ve had to follow him all the way into Crowley’s property.”

“Who’s Crowley?”

“Closest thing we have to a neighbor ‘round these parts,” Benny explained. “Don’t talk to him, though. He’s a nasty jerk and Meg doesn’t really care for him.”

Castiel swallowed the impulse to say he wasn’t sure Meg’s judgment should be trusted after the stunt she’d pulled earlier. But to each their own, he guessed.

“Let’s go, you four-legged nightmare,” he told the horse.

He pulled the bridle, fully expecting _Morningstar_ to stay right where he was… but to his surprise, the colt started walking as meek as a well-trained animal. Castiel stopped a second to take in that phenomenon and tried to find out what was different about this part of the property or the people in it or…

“Benny, bring _Satrina_ over here,” Castiel requested.

Benny shot him an interrogating look, but he lead the mare close enough that Castiel could tie them together, with _Morningstar_ behind her. He took second to consider that if he died Claire wouldn’t have anyone left in the world, and then he mounted _Morningstar_. The horse’s body tensed between his legs, but _Satrina_ looked over her shoulder and let out a gentle puff of air. _Morningstar_ stayed right where he was, sheepish but still. He didn’t buck, he didn’t run or become maddened by the fact he had a human on his back.

“I’ll be damned,” Benny muttered.

Castiel was also surprised, but at the same time immensely satisfied. As much of an incompetent as Meg thought he was, she couldn’t say now that he didn’t get results.

“Are you telling me no one tried this before?” he asked. “No faster way to get a boy to behave than to tell on him to his mom.”

 

* * *

 

The practicing track wasn’t, in Castiel’s opinion, the best place for ground training for a foal, but since _Morningstar_ had gone back to his old ways the moment he saw himself locked in the paddock again, he considered placing _Persephone_ ’s foal with him would be counterproductive. So they were on the dusty track, the mare looking at him with curiosity while Castiel tried to lure the foal closer to him with a carrot sticks Andrea had been so kind to cut up for him.

“There we go,” he muttered as the small chestnut finally received his treat. “Now, let’s see if we can make you follow me.”

The foal got a little nervous when Castiel tied the reins around his muzzle, but after seeing his mother remained calm, he decided not to try and run Castiel over in a panic.

“Come on now, there we go,” he said, happily as the foal began following him after a soft nudge. “At least someone around here knows how to behave.”

“I take it you’d also put a bridle on me if you could.”

Claire was leaning on the fence, watching like she didn’t really care for what she was seeing. So Castiel decided to play it cool as well.

“What happened to sleeping until six in the afternoon?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to do when there’s sunlight pouring in through your window,” Claire rolled her eyes, as if it wasn’t her own fault for not hanging the curtains and refusing Castiel’s help to do it. “Heard someone fell off the horse, though.”

“Yes, Miss Masters doesn’t seem to place too much value in her own personal safety,” Castiel, frustrated.

“The person who voluntarily rides an eighteenth century means of transportation at high speed for kicks? I’m shocked and aghast.”

Castiel chuckled and pulled the foam closer to the fence.

“They’re very smart animals, if you give them a chance.”

“I’d rather not…”

“Just try it,” Castiel insisted, handing her a couple of carrot sticks. “Come on.”

Claire was obviously going to pass him the sticks back with some sort of smartass comment that was already starting to roll out of his tongue, but the foal interpreted the movement as her offering more treats.

“Hey!” Claire exclaimed, surprised and a little offended. The foal chewed his carrots while staring at her with his big dark eyes, and slowly, as if she was trying to hold it back, a smile appeared on Claire’s face. “I guess this little guy’s not so bad.”

 

* * *

 

Castiel politely rejected Andrea’s invitation to dine at the main house, first because what was the point of having gone to the town for groceries if they weren’t actually going to cook their groceries? And second, because he didn’t want to cross paths with Meg, at least for the remaining of the day. Things were bound to be tense still, and he didn’t think he could resist telling her he had found a way to keep _Morningstar_ calm while someone was on him. He wanted to see the shock on her face the following day.

“Hey, not so fast!” he said, when Claire got up from the table with clear intentions of disappearing into her room. “It’s your turn to do the dishes.”

“I’ll do them in the morning,” Claire answered, already halfway into the hall and knowing full well morning for her meant noon or later.

Castiel couldn’t even think of a good threat of a punishment to get her to come back, so he decided part of being Claire’s guardian meant he had to trust she would keep her word.

His bedroom was still the mess he had left it as that morning, so he took off his shirt and threw it on the floor because one more item spread there wasn’t going to hurt anybody. Yes, he should probably lead by example if he wanted Claire to be more orderly, but she couldn’t see him right then, could she?

He lifted the window’s pane, hoping to catch some inexistent breeze in the warmth night. He was about to go back to bed when a movement in the corner of his eyes and a glimmering light caught his attention. A window on the second floor of the main house had just become illuminated, the curtains drawn so he could see inside, and he wasn’t too far away that he couldn’t know who was there or what was going on.

Meg had just walked into her room, after being God knew where all day. In one single movement, she unbuttoned her shirt and her pants and dropped them on the floor carelessly. Castiel knew he should look away, because the only way that day could be worse was if he was caught ogling at his boss as she undressed.

But he still couldn’t tear his eyes away. Not because she enticed him or anything. She was a beautiful woman, that was undeniable, but the reason Castiel stayed where he was, his eyes glued to her every movement, wasn’t particularly sexual.

Meg was standing in front of a full body mirror by the window, critically analyzing her aspect. She was petite and thin, she had to be for her work, and that somehow made it all worse when she started picking at the bruises over her ribs and thighs. They just seemed too big for such a small woman, and her painful grimaces made it all worse. Castiel couldn’t help but to wonder how many times had she fallen in the name of breaking her winning colt, how long had she been trying to convince herself she could handle it before she admitted that she even needed a bit of help.

Meg produced an ice pack from somewhere and pressed it against her bruises, before moving away from Castiel’s sight. The lights went off and the room was silent and still.

Castiel stayed by the window for a while, thinking to himself that tomorrow he’d do his best to show Meg that their misunderstandings didn’t have to define their entire work relationship.


	4. Severe Misunderstandings

It turned out their misunderstandings were a little more severe than Castiel had expected them to be. It was as if his boss had decided to be a total demon to him.

“Really?” Meg asked, staring at him with a skeptic eyebrow up. “Is that the best solution you could come up with?”

Castiel gritted his teeth but didn’t let his anger get to him as he finished tying up _Morningstar_ to _Satrina_ ’s saddle.

“He’s still very young, and I don’t think having him isolated was the best solution to his behavioral problems…”

“Well, it was that or having the poor foal bitten every other day,” Meg justified herself.

“So it’s logical he feels safe and calm when around his mother,” Castiel continued, ignoring the interjection. “It might give us the stillness we need for him to calm down and learn to accept a rider on his back.”

Meg clearly was still not convinced, but when Castiel extended a hand, as if beckoning to try and mount him, she sighed and put her foot on the stirrup. _Morningstar_ ’s body tensed up and he started kicking the ground. Meg held on to the chair, as she was expecting the colt to bolt out of the paddock again… but after a few seconds, he settled down. He clearly was still uncomfortable, but at least he wasn’t trying to shake Meg off his back. Meg looked at the colt and then at Castiel with a crooked eyebrow.

“Huh,” she muttered.

If Castiel knew her a little bit better, he might have even thought she was impressed. As it was, her reaction was extremely underwhelming.

“That’s it?” he asked, frowning. “I manage to put you up in this nightmare of a horse, and that’s all you have to say?”

“I’ll congratulate you when we’re running races,” Meg shrugged. “Give me the bridles.”

“No,” Castiel replied, hiding them behind his back. That might have been a little immature, it was true, but for the way Meg was acting, she deserved nothing less.

She blinked at him, perplexed, like she wasn’t used to someone not obeying a direct order from her.

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean the moment I give you these bridles, that horse is going out of control again,” Castiel replied. “And that would be counterproductive after the trouble you went just to prop yourself up.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Meg rolled her eyes. “How else do you expect him to learn the orders? He has to get used to it…”

“We can ease him into it,” Castiel insisted. “It doesn’t have to be a horrible, traumatic experience…”

“Are you for real, Freud?” Meg interrupted him with an exasperated huff. “I though you psychoanalyzed people, not horses.”

“I had a partner who dealt with the therapeutic part,” Castiel explained, although he wasn’t sure it would make much of a difference to Meg. “I worked with the horses, and I’m telling you, what you’re trying to do here isn’t going to work.”

“And I am telling you to give me the reins,” Meg insisted. “I can handle him.”

“You obviously can’t, and I refuse to be responsible for your injuries!”

“What are you doing?” Meg asked, scandalized as Castiel started taking the bridles off _Morningstar_ ’s head. “Put them back on, right now! We’re doing this my way, you hear me?”

“Come do it yourself,” Castiel replied, leaving the reins by the paddock’s fence. “Your way it’s going to get you killed and the horse will still be unbroken. So I’m not doing anything else for you or him until you’re ready to try mine.”

He turned around and started guiding _Satrina_ back to the stables. His face burned with anger and his hands trembled with pure indignation, but he was decided not to argue anymore. He didn’t know who was more stubborn, if the horse or his rider.

“You come back here right this instant, Novak!” Meg shouted in his wake, but Castiel didn’t bother to obey. “Novak!”

He heard her boots hitting the ground and her footsteps running towards him, but he didn’t stop walking until Meg planted herself in front of him.

“Just who the hell do you think you are, exactly?”

“I am your trainer, Miss Masters,” he replied, staring at her in the eye. “You hired me to help you, because you obviously don’t have the patience or the skill to do this yourself. So you’ll do well to listen to me.”

“Fuck you,” Meg replied, raising her chin with pride. “I hired you to do as you’re told and if you don’t like it, you can gather your things and your kid and get the hell out of my property.”

Despite how frustrated he was, Castiel couldn’t help but to notice something: Meg looked extremely beautiful when she was angry. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were shining, her lips pursed in an aggressive pout that made him think of a kiss. It hit him like a truck that his boss was a very attractive woman, or maybe he had noticed that already, and it was really awkward moment to notice it again, given she had just basically threatened to fire him.

But goddammit, she was also so damned irritating and irrational maybe it was for the best.

“Good day, Miss Masters,” he replied, and he strode away, decided not to turn back even if she called him or went after him again.

It didn’t matter. Meg did neither of those things. When Castiel was far away enough that he believed he could safely turn back without her realizing, he saw the stable’s doors were open. A second later, Meg and _Zeus_ bolted out and disappeared in the distance in the blink of an eye.

Another thing he shouldn’t have noticed when he was so angry at her: how great her technique was, how she leaned forwards and managed to keep her balance even at that speed. She truly was an amazing jockey.

Which made it all more frustrating that she just wouldn’t let him work with _Morningstar_. They would make a team that could take any race by storm.

“Hey, you’re home early,” Claire commented from the couch, where she was reading peacefully. At the very least, she had taken off her shoes before plating her feet up on the coffee table. Castiel took that as a win. He flailed down next to her with a sigh. His ears still rang from his argument with Meg.

“I think I just got fired,” he confessed, because if he had bad news to break to her, it was always better to make it quickly.

“Oh, no, that’s terrible, this place was really starting to grow on me,” she said. She wasn’t even trying to hide her enthusiasm as she closed the book with a swift movement. “When are we going back home? You know what, doesn’t matter. I’ll just start packing now.”

“Claire,” Castiel called her, when she was already halfway across the hall. “Claire, it’s not a certain thing!”

“That’s okay,” Claire said from the doorframe of her room. “I never unpacked to begin with, so I’m ready to go whenever.”

“Claire!” Castiel called her again, but she had already closed the door behind her.

He stayed behind on the couch, wondering about his niece and if she really hated that place that much. And of course, wondering if it was worth staying there when it was making them so thoroughly miserable.

There was a knock on the door, but Castiel didn't exactly rushed to open. He wasn't eager to face Meg again and have her telling him she had meant every single word and asking him when was he going to vacate the cabin.

Except that it was Benny who was on the other side. He was carrying a plate with half a fruitcake in it.

"Hey, chief," he greeted him with a wry smile. "My lady thought you'd like something for dessert."

"Oh, that's really nice," Castiel said, observing the fruitcake with suspicion. "I appreciate that a lot, but I don't think I can just keep taking Andrea's food..."

"Please, accept it," Benny insisted. "I heard the boss chewed up your head today and you might need something to wash off the bitter taste from your mouth."

So that was what it was all about.

"Yes, you heard correctly," he said, carefully. Benny and Andrea had been both very kind to him, but he couldn't ignore the fact they had all been working for Meg far longer than he had. “But, uh…”

“Don’t pay attention to her,” he continued. “She says things she doesn’t mean and then she forgets about them. I’m positive she won’t even remember she fired you by tomorrow.”

“That is a pretty big thing to forget.” Castiel frowned.

“Take the fruitcake, Castiel,” Benny said with a sigh. Castiel had the impression it wasn’t going to be so simple and that Benny and Andrea were the ones who were going have to deal with the fallout of the fighting. “And take the rest of the day off. Your niece’s been cooking up in here since you arrive. Why don’t you take her to the town? See if she makes some friends.”

Castiel was going to say that Claire wasn’t exactly “friendly”, but he refrained.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I might do that. Is there any place where we can have lunch that you know off?”

“Try the Roadhouse,” Benny suggested, as Castiel figured he would. In a small town like that, there was always only one place everybody knew. “Ellen’s cheeseburgers are a work of art.”

 

* * *

 

He had to gently coax Claire out of her room, but eventually she agreed under the promise they would also get ice creams when they were done with the burgers. Castiel again noticed the excess of the food she ingested, but once more he decided not to comment on it.

Finding the Roadhouse was easy. They only had to ask the first person they encounter as soon as they arrived.

“So just follow the main street all the way through,” the black man instructed them. “And if you see Ellen, tell Rufus is sending clients to her because he cares.”

“We’ll be sure to do that,” Castiel assured him. “Thank you.”

The place looked like it had seen better days, with its rundown wooden panels and the turned off neon sign above the door. There were still so many cars and trucks parked outside that they had to go around the corner a couple of times before they could find a spot for theirs.

“What’s so hot about this place anyway?” Claire complained under her breath.

Castiel was tempted to say that as a city girl, she wouldn’t understand. He and her father, Jimmy, had grown in a town that was just slightly bigger than this one, and of course, it also had one family restaurant that doubled as a bar as soon as the sun went down. It was the place where people gathered around, where they got to know each other and share the latest gossip. Everybody went there for lunch on Saturdays, everybody had their first date or their first job tending tables there, everybody grabbed a beer with their coworkers after a long day there. It was there where the community would either deem them worthy to be a part of them or cast them out as pariahs, and he was a second away to tell Claire to please be on her best behavior.

And then it hit him his niece didn’t want to be a part of the community, no matter how much he begged her to.

“Just… let’s just have nice lunch, okay?”

Claire huffed, but she walked in with him anyway.

The chatter inside seemed to stop all at once when the people in their tables turn around to glance at the newcomers. They weren’t even subtle about them: eyes filled with curiosity followed each of their steps until they found an empty table for two in a corner.

“Didn’t their moms tell them it was rude to stare?” Claire complained, hiding her face beneath the menu.

Castiel was once again about to tell her to calm down, that it was normal than in a place so small even something as inconsequential as their arrival would gather attention… but then he noticed Claire’s cheeks were red and she was passing the menu’s pages back and forwards without even reading them. She was genuinely anxious to be there, but before he could suggest they’d go somewhere else, a blonde girl with an apron and a notepad approached their table.

“Hello,” she greeted them with a warm smile. “My name is Jo. Can I take your order?”

“Uh, yeah, sure… we would like two cheeseburgers, right?” he inquired, and Claire nodded curtly. “We’ve heard they’re really good here.”

“Oh, you heard from whom?” Jo’s smile didn’t waver a little, but Castiel felt the sting of the question. He was pretty certain that if he gave the wrong name, her kindness would vanish in thin air.

“Uh, from… Dean?” he said. It felt a little weird to talk about him like they had exchanged more than a few phrases in the supermarket, but that was enough to get Jo to stop doubting he belonged there.

“Oh, yeah, Dean!” She nodded. “He’s actually here right now. I’ll tell him you came.”

“Thank you,” Castiel said, and then turned to Claire. “See? People are really nice here. There’s no reason for you to feel nervous.”

“Whatever,” Claire muttered, and immediately changed the topic. “So do we have to find another place to live or is the Masters letting us stay in the cabin until you find another job?”

Castiel did his best not to show the exasperation that topic caused him.

“I just really…”

“Hey, you two,” a deep voice said. Dean Winchester patted him in the shoulder like they had known each other for years, a beer in his hand and a grin in his face. “I was wondering how long it would be ‘til we met again.”

“Yes, hi,” Castiel muttered, awkwardly. “It is good to see you.”

“Not that it would be hard, since the town isn’t exactly a metropolis,” Claire commented.

“You’re right about that,” Dean conceded before Castiel could chastise her. “How much have you seen of it?”

Claire opened her mouth to answer something sarcastic, but then a boy with thick framed glasses that couldn’t be much older than her set down two cans of soda in front of them.

“It comes with the cheeseburgers,” he said, fidgeting with his apron. “Jo forgot to… yeah.”

“Ben, right on cue,” Dean said, beckoning for the boy to stay. “This is my stepson, Ben. He works here part time. These are Cas and his niece, Claire. We were just talking about how Claire needs someone to show her around town.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, not right now, obviously, you’re having lunch,” Dean replied. “But maybe when you’re done and Ben’s shift ends in fifteen minutes. He can give you the tour while your uncle and I have some beers, right?”

Claire shot a glance of despair at her uncle, but Castiel had just decided there was nothing in the world he would like more than to have some beers with Dean and not got back to Morningstar for a couple of hours.

“That sounds great. Claire hasn’t had the chance to make new friends here, and she would really appreciate it.”

“Oh, well… some of us are meeting up in the park later,” Ben said, scratching the back of his neck. “Maybe you’d like to come?”

Knowing her, Claire probably would have said something along the lines of her rather setting herself on fire, but Jo had just arrived with their burgers, so she didn’t get the chance.

“There you go,” she said, with the same courteous smile than before. “Ben, table five needs cleaning.”

“Going,” Ben said, clearly relieved to escape the conversation. “I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Enjoy your lunch,” Dean wished them, before sauntering away to wherever it was that he’d come from.

“Nice people all around, huh?” Castiel commented.

Claire was glaring at him as if he had just murdered her pet hamster or something of the sorts.

“Traitor,” she muttered.

Castiel raised his hands, accepting he may have ambushed his niece into that.

“Alright, consider this,” he said. “You either go to the park with Ben or, come September, you’ll be the weirdo at school who doesn’t know anybody.”

“We’re not going to be here by September,” Claire pointed out. “Your boss fired you, remember?”

“Eat your burger, Claire.”

Something in his tone must have indicated her that he wasn’t in the mood to continue that conversation, and to his surprise, Claire actually backed down.

She still stole fries form his plate when she thought he wasn’t looking, but he could hardly get mad at her for that. The burger was indeed just as glorious as people in town had built it up to be, and with every bite, Castiel could practically feel the tension of the day abandoning his body. Claire also looked a lot happier once she’d eaten: she leaned back on the chair and actually had some small talk with him.

“So what happens to the little guy now?”

“The little guy?” he repeated. It took him a second to figure out she was talking about _Percy_ ’s unnamed foal. “Well, in a few months, he will be ready to be mounted. I don’t think Meg would want to castrate it, he’s a very nice specimen.”

“It’s ridiculous that he doesn’t have a name,” she commented. “I thought all people named their pets the moment they got one.”

“These aren’t pets, Claire,” he reminded her. “These are racing horses.”

“Oh, so we’re talking borderline animal abuse.”

“Hardly,” Castiel said, holding back a chuckle, because of course Claire would accuse him of it. “Think about them as… athletes that have to train very hard. Of course we would never abuse them, but we do need to push them to help them reach their potential.”

“Do you think the black one will reach its potential?” she asked. “I walked past the paddock to see the dogs the other day and I swear he tried to bite me.”

“It does seem to be a thing he does,” Castiel sighed. “But eventually, with patience… I think he might be ready to compete, yes. He’s magnificent.”

“Okay, weird.” Claire rolled her eyes. “You still haven’t given me a good reason not to name the little guy.”

“It’s likely Meg intends to sell him,” Castiel speculated. “In that case, it’d be the new owner who gets to pick a name.”

Claire tapped her fingers on the table, like she was reflecting on something.

“Maybe you could tell Daphne to buy it,” she suggested. “For the center, you know. That way he won’t have to run and he’d get to have a good life still.”

Castiel was shocked, but decided not to say anything about it. Claire had taken an unexpected liking to the foal, but accusing her of it was guaranteed to earn him three days of huffs and cold shoulders.

“Daphne has enough with just three horses and they are more than enough for all the kids that visit the center,” he told her. “And besides, who says racehorses can’t have a good life?”

Claire didn’t seem very convinced, but she accepted the explanation with a half shrug and by pushing her empty plate away from her.

“I don’t really have to go hang out with that guy, do I?” she asked, wincing. “You promise me ice cream…”

“And we’ll go for ice cream,” Castiel assured him. “After I have a beer with Dean and you make friends with Ben. I’ll let you drive on the way back if you just give it a try,” he offered to shush whatever protest she was already planning to dish out.

She puckered her lips, displeased, but didn’t protest when Ben appeared, without his apron this time but still looking a little bit disoriented.

“So… my shift just ended. You’re still up for the park?”

“Oh, yay, the park,” Claire replied. “Sounds great. Let’s go.”

If Ben perceived the sarcasm in her tone, he didn’t say anything about it.

“We’ll be back in like an hour,” he told Castiel. “Don’t worry, Mr. Novak.”

“Keep your cellphone on,” Castiel warned Claire. “Have fun!”

“Says the guy who hasn’t had any this side of the eighties,” she replied.

Castiel had been subjected to that particular joke before, so he wasn’t too bummed about it. However, he thought he saw Ben laughing to himself, and that was very disrespectful. Before he could start ranting about kids those days like a seventy year old man, Dean occupied Claire’s empty seat.

“They’re at that magical age, huh?” he commented, sliding a glass of cold beer towards him.

“Ah, yes,” Castiel commented before taking a big gulp. “I needed this today,” he sighed with relief.

“Okay, I know having a teenager is hard, but…” Dean started joking, but his smile vanished as soon as he noticed Castiel was completely serious about his comment. “What, rough day at work?”

“More like a rough week,” Castiel clarified. “Meg is… she’s… we’ve had some severe misunderstandings.”

He took another sip, feeling like he had just made the understatement of the century.

“Well, I can’t really tell you I’m surprised,” Dean said. “I’ve only had the pleasure to meet her in person a couple of times, and let me tell you, it does seem like everything they say about her is true.”

“What do they say about her?”

Dean scratched his neck awkwardly, like he had said more than he had intended to.

“I don’t know, man, she’s your boss and… it’s mostly just town gossip anyway…”

“I would like to know,” Castiel insisted. “To be honest with you, I came in here blind and I would like to learn a little bit more about who I’m working for.”

Dean tapped on his bottle pensively for a moment before looking over his shoulder to another table.

“Hey, Bobby!” he called. “Come have a beer with us!”

The bearded man with the green hat looked at him sternly, and for a second, Castiel was completely sure he was going to tell them to go to hell. But in the end he got up, dragged a chair with him and sat down. Dean introduced them:

“This is Bobby Singer. He’s my boss,” he explained. “He has the best workshop in all Northeast Haven, if you ever need something fixed…”

“Cut it out, son, I don’t need your free publicity,” Bobby interrupted him. Castiel didn’t know if he was supposed to laugh, but he found he liked Bobby’s no-nonsense style. “So, you work at the Morningstar.”

“Yes.” Castiel nodded and looked at Dean, who made him an encouraging gesture. “I was… actually wondering a little bit about its history…”

Bobby leaned down on his chair and took a long sip of his bottle.

“Well, it ain’t a happy tale.”


	5. Small Town Gossip

Ben didn’t talk much. Claire didn’t know why that was: maybe he had nothing to say, or maybe it was her ‘uninviting and hostile attitude’, as her uncle called it. In any case, she was perfectly happy to wander around the streets, aimlessly it would seem, in complete silence, just so she could totally tell Castiel she wasn’t always holed up in her room. She walked as far from Ben as she could and kept her arms folded over her chest at all times. If Ben noticed her excessively cautious attitude or felt offended by it, he didn't say a word about it.

After a few awkward minutes, he cleared his throat:

“So… how long ago did you move?”

“A week,” Claire replied, and didn’t offer more details. But now he had started, Ben apparently felt the obligation to continue with his host role:

“And you like it?”

Claire shrugged, in what she hoped would be interpreted as the universal gesture of not having much of an opinion.

“Yeah, I hated it when we just moved too,” Ben commented. “Not much happens around here, and the Internet’s really slow… but at least people are cool.”

“Oh, sure, that makes up for everything else,” Claire said. She hoped her sarcasm hadn’t been too scalding. Actually, she really didn’t care: Ben seemed like kind of a dweeb and she wasn’t sure they would get along given how fundamentally they disagreed on what constituted ‘cool’.

“They’ll grow on you,” Ben said and proved that he could also shrug pretty eloquently. “There’s the park.”

They hadn’t even walked two blocks. And the park looked more like a single square that managed to compress some trees and a fairly small playground on the center. There were no children running around (in fact, the games looked rusty and like they hadn’t been touched in ages), but a single brunette girl sitting on the swings and lazily rocking herself back and forth.

“Hey, Ben!” she greeted him with a wave. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Claire. Claire, this is Alexis,” he introduce them. “Claire just moved. Her uncle’s working at the Morningstar.”

Alexis’ clear eyes opened wide at that information.

“Really?” she asked, staring at Claire like Ben had just revealed she had met the Queen of England and shaken her hand. “How is it?”

“It’s… big,” Claire said, not sure what kind of answer was Alexis looking for there. “It has horses…”

“Krissy Chambers said they had a Jacuzzi,” Alexis commented. “That her dad saw it when they called him to fix it. Is that true?”

“Well, I haven’t seen it,” Claire said, tentatively. “They do have a pool, though.”

“That sounds nice,” Ben said, taking the swing next to Alexis. “Do they let you use it? The closest thing I would get to see one this summer is if I fill a bucket with water and throw it over my head.”

Alexis chuckled and even Claire had to crack a smile. The mental image was just too funny not to. Some of the tension Claire had been holding on to since leaving the restaurant with Ben vanished in thin air. Not all of it though, just enough for her to let her arms fall at the sides of her body. Alexis seemed like a nice enough person and, of course, it was always better to be in a group than to try to have a one on one conversation. For whatever reason, Claire figured it was less awkward when she went quiet because she had nothing to contribute to the conversation.

“They said I could, but I don’t know,” she explained. She hesitated a second, and then she sat on the last free swing, to the left. “I get the feeling the Masters is very special about her house.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.” Alexis nodded. “Krissy says she shouted at her dad and then practically kicked him out when he finished his job.”

“Dean says she brought her car to the workshop for repairs and she just stood there while they determined how much it was going to cost,” Ben told them. “And then she started arguing with Bobby about the prize and they had this huge fight, and finally Bobby had to agree to give her a discount.”

“Dude, really?” Claire wasn’t surprised at the stories. Miss Masters did seem to have a penchant for treating people working for her like shit, if Castiel was to be believed. She was surprised that having that big ass house and all those expensive horses, she was such a cheapskate.

“Yeah, she’s awful,” Alexis confirmed. “But my mom says her brother’s worse. One time, Ellen called her because he was drunk out of his mind and making a scene. My mom had to arrest him and drag him away. Ellen banned him from the Roadhouse after that.”

Claire had nothing to say about that. She hadn’t met the infamous Tom Masters, and for what she'd seen, Andrea and Benny seemed to think it was best if he never showed up by the house. She changed the topic.

“So your mom’s the sheriff?”

“Foster mom,” Alexis explained. “She adopted me last year.”

“We met her when we arrived,” Claire commented. “She was… helpful.”

She actually thought Sheriff Mills was pretty nice, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud.

“Yeah, I lucked out. My actual mom was a lunatic, which is why I ended up in the system in the first place.”

"Well, at least you know who your mom is," Ben said. "My dad was just some guy my mom happened to meet at a biker's bar."

"Shut up, you got Dean," Alexis replied, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, he's okay, I guess." Ben shrugged. "I mean, I've met some of my mom's ex-boyfriends and I know for sure it could have been a lot worse."

Claire kicked the dirt beneath the swing. She didn't know exactly what to respond to those declarations, and it was obvious they weren't making them so she would share her story as well. They were just commenting casually how dysfunctional their families were, like they assumed nobody could possibly have a normal, nuclear one like you saw on sitcoms. For some reason, that made her feel less lonely.

"My parents died three years ago," she confessed, still drawing figures in the sand with the tip of her shoes. "A drunk driver crashed into them one night when they were coming home. That's why I live with my uncle. He was my dad's brother."

Alexis and Ben didn't answer for a moment, and Claire started feeling like she had done something wrong. Like they could share those things because they were friends and knew each other well, but she was the new girl in town and she should have just kept her mouth shut...

"And how's he?" Alexis asked. "Do you like living with him or...?"

Claire was relieved. They weren't ignoring her story; they just didn't think she was finished with it.

"He... he does what he can," she answered.

That was an apt description: Castiel wasn't entirely aware of everything that went on with Claire, but he had taken her in and reorganized his life so she could fit in it. And she knew he'd do anything to keep her safe, which was one of the reasons they had moved there. But that she definitely wasn't ready to confess.

"So an orphan, a foster kid and the product of a one night stand," Ben commented. "We should form a band."

 

* * *

 

"Yeah, I knew Old Luc Masters," Bobby began his story. "Who didn't? The man was the richest cat in town, he had a champion horse and every year for New Year's Eve, he threw a party at the ranch and everybody who was someone was invited. People said he was a bit of an eccentric but he was well liked.

"Things changed when he died and Azazel took charge. He managed to keep the ranch up and running and the horses winning. But he wasn't as regarded as his old man.”

“He was a bit of an elitist,” Dean explained.

“He was an entitled dick,” Bobby corrected him. “Always flashing his money, always strutting in good cars and always so certain he was royalty and the rest of us were just peasants that were supposed to lick his boots. And his kids weren’t much better then, and they aren’t much better now.”

He stopped to take a sip of his beer. Castiel pondered about small towns, about how opinions about someone could be passed down onto their descendants same as their last name did.

“He obviously didn’t have much going for him in the way of a personality,” Bobby commented. “Or his wife wouldn’t have up and left him one day. That’s when their kids really became troublemakers. They came back for the summer from their fancy schools and you could see them driving around in their car at top speed, drinking, smoking, destroying property. They always got away with it without so much as a slap on the wrist because the old sheriff, Alistair, was in Azazel’s pocket. Believe me, it was a huge relief when the brats finally graduated and got the hell out of dodge. We thought, good riddance, you know, let the folks at the city deal with them. They’ll fit right in.”

Castiel bit back a smile. It was obvious people from “the city” didn’t rank high on Bobby’s opinion. He refrained from reminding him he and his niece were both from “the city”.

“That was about the time Fergus Crowley moved in,” Bobby said.

“Sleazy son of a bitch,” Dean commented, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, he might be sleazy, but he’s good for the town,” Bobby replied, pointing a finger at Dean as if to warn him to watch his words. “He’s been buying the land from other ranches, promising to develop and bring more people into the old Northeast Haven. All for a price, of course. He’s a businessman. If he wasn’t somewhat sleazy, people wouldn’t trust him.”

Dean looked like he wanted to say that people shouldn’t trust him anyway, but he kept quiet.

“But Azazel wasn’t on board with that plan. His ranch is smacked in the middle of the land Crowley wants to develop, but he refused to sell just to spite us, I guess. He didn’t back down even when his horses started losing big time. I think that’s what killed him,” Bobby commented. “He didn’t want to admit defeat. He didn’t know how to live without his fortune.

“We figured that would be the end of it, that his kids would sell, take the money and run. But they actually came back and took over the place, even though everyone knows it’s a money black hole. Tom had got married and apparently his wife was a bitch just as big as them, but she knew her way around horses. She trained them, Meg rode them and Tom administered the money. They had some victories, though nothing as spectacular as the old times, you know?”

“I’ve read about that,” Castiel said. “But I didn’t know Meg’s sister-in-law was the previous trainer.”

“Kid, we wouldn’t have found out if it wasn’t for the papers,” Bobby said. “They never came to town, they never spoke with us. Like their old man, they thought they were too good for us. But at least they kept their noses clean, you know what I mean? They didn’t do anything to bother us, they just ignored us. So even though they were the wrench in Crowley’s plans, we pretty much ignored them as well.”

He spoke like it had been a collective decision, like the entire town had gathered and asked themselves ‘ _So, what do we do about the Masters?_ ’ Castiel wondered how many disputes around there got solve that way.

“That is, until Junior fucked it up last year,” Bobby sighed. “I don’t know about this, but I’ve heard he bet a lot of money they simply didn’t have and almost ruined them. What’s more, his wife walked out on him. Some people say he cheated. What we do know is that Norah didn’t have a boyfriend, but then all of the sudden she had a baby. And Tom came to town a whole lot more often before that.”

“I’ve met Norah,” Castiel remembered. “She works at the Gas-‘N’-Sip.”

She had also got very agitated when he had mentioned he worked at the Morningstar. Maybe that was the reason?

“Kindest girl you’ll ever meet,” Bobby nodded.

“And she loves that baby like you have no idea,” Dean intervened. “One time she came into the workshop to ask if there was any way to make her car chair stop rattling. I told her it wasn’t the chair, it was the car. That old thing of hers’ going to fall apart at any second.”

“Meanwhile, that rascal lives in that big old mansion and can’t be bothered to spare a dime for his kid,” Bobby groaned.

“Well, I don’t know if he lives there,” Castiel said. Both men pricked his ears, like he had just said something very interesting. “Andrea… Meg’s cook says he doesn’t show up a lot. And I’ve been there for a week and I haven’t even met him yet.”

“So it’s just her running the entire thing?” Dean asked. He whistled after Castiel nodded. “No wonder she acts like no one has fucked her in ages, huh?”

No one laughed at his joke, and Dean returned to his beer muttering something under his breath.

“Thing is, the place’s running on fumes and it has more drama than it’s worth it,” Bobby concluded. “My advice to you, son, is that you run as far as you can. ‘Cause when she finally sells the land to Crowley, you’re going to be out of commission fast. You got a kid to think about it.”

That was true. Castiel tapped his bottle beer, pensively. The situation at the Morningstar looked bleak and maybe it was better if he took Meg’s word literally and started looking for another job. But moving there had been hard enough, and despite Claire’s apparent eagerness to leave, he was pretty certain she wasn’t going to take it well unless he had already decided of a place to go. With a tingle of despair, he wondered if there was any chance Daphne would give him his old job back.

On the other hand, he only had to worry about Claire for another year. After that, she would be off to college and...

"Another year," he muttered to himself. Dean and Bobby glanced at him with confused frowns. "Meg said she only needed to keep the ranch going for another year. Do you know what she meant? What happens in a year?"

Dean shook his head, as if to indicate he had no idea. Bobby lifted his bottle very slowly, took another gulp and set it down on the table, all of that like he was trying to gain some time to think about it.

"I have no clue," he admitted in the end. "But I sure hope it doesn't mean bad news for us."

The conversation died a little while they all drank what was left at the bottom of their bottles.

"So... do you have to go back or can you have another?" Dean asked.

Castiel's cellphone vibrated with a message from Claire.

_> Having ice cream with Ben & Alex. Give 1 hr._

"I have some time," Castiel decided. "Thank you."

 

* * *

 

For the first time since they had arrived to Northeast Haven, Claire seemed satisfied with something.

"So Josephine was telling us about her farewell party she plans to have next Friday, but then these guys showed up and Alexis' ex was with them and she didn't want to talk to him," she told Castiel as they drove back to Morningstar.

"Alexis is the one who said Meg had a Jacuzzi?"

"No, she's the sheriff's daughter. Pay attention," Claire huffed. As always, she seemed to think her uncle was being obtuse on purpose. "So she, Ben and I went for ice cream to this nice place down the street, but they also had frozen yogurt, which I haven't had in ages, so I had that instead. Ben ordered this triple chocolate ice cream and I swear to God, he totally deep-throated it..."

"Language," Castiel groaned.

"I didn't mean anything bad by it!" Claire defended herself. "It was kind of scary, actually. Anyway, then he had brain freeze for like eight minutes, so Alexis and I got talking and we want to go together to the party."

She didn't take her eyes off the road while she said that. In fact, she had been driving with uncharacteristic care, stopping at all the signs and going at a couple of miles below the limit. When he asked if something was wrong with her, she pointed out the sun was going down and it wasn’t a good idea to drive fast when it was dark. Castiel only half-believed her.

"A party?" he repeated.

"Yeah, next week. At Josephine Barnes' house," she repeated, pronouncing every word very slowly, almost as if she hoped the name and date to stick in Castiel's brain.

He rubbed his temples.

"Okay, well... do you want to go?" he asked. It wouldn't be the first time that Claire asked him to ground her for a random reason or spontaneously decided to help around the house just so she could have an excuse for staying at home and reading instead of going out.

“Would I be telling you about it if I didn’t?” Claire said, which wasn’t the same thing as affirming enthusiastically that was what she wanted, but then again, it had been a while since the last time Claire did anything with enthusiasm.

“Fine, I’ll drive you and your friends,” Castiel offered. “Just make sure you get this girl’s address correctly and…”

“Actually, I was kind of hoping you would let me take the car.”

They were on the road that led to Morningstar now and Castiel realized she had been postponing that request for the entire ride.

“Oh, were you?” he asked, crooking an eyebrow. Of course. That’s why she had been driving so smoothly.

“Yeah, it’s just… Ben says Dean’s very particular about his car and he won’t lend it to him,” Claire explained. “And Alexis’ mom is the sheriff and it would be kind of a bummer if she showed up to drop her, so…”

“Why would it be a problem for Alexis’ mother to drop her off?” Castiel asked. “Unless you’re planning to do something you shouldn’t…”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Claire groaned. “Why you gotta be so paranoid? It’s just a party!”

Castiel tilted his head.

“A party you want to go to,” he pointed out.

“What, is it a crime?” she asked. “Weren’t you the one telling me I had to make new friends? Well, I don’t know how it was done when you were younger, but these days kids go to parties to meet each other.”

“You should be kinder to me,” Castiel scowled at her. “The car is mine, after all.”

“Only because you made me leave my part time job to come here before I could save up to buy one,” Claire reminded him.

“That’s an excellent point,” Castiel said. “I’ve been talking to this man, Bobby Singer. He has a scrapyard next to his workshop and some second hand cars at very accessible prizes. I think you could buy one with the money you’ve saved up so far. Perhaps you should talk to him, and if you still need some money, I’ll lend it to you. You can find a job and pay me back whenever you can.”

They were at Morningstar’s entrance. Claire stopped the car and turned to look at her uncle with suspicion in her blue eyes.

“What’s the catch?” she asked.

“No catch,” Castiel promised. “If you talk to Bobby this week, you might even get the car before the party and you won’t have to take mine.”

Claire was still staring at her like she suspected he was trying to trap her somehow. Castiel sighed and leaned back on his seat.

“You’ve been locked up in the house sleeping, reading and gorging up on junk food,” he pointed out. “I know you think I brought you here because I hate you, but that is just not true. I did it because I saw how miserable and scared you were back at home after the…”

“I know after what.” Claire crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Claire, you barely passed school after that,” Castiel reminded her, even though he knew he was now treading dangerous ground. “You dropped all your extra-curricular activities, you didn’t want to see any of your friends. You even stopped talking about going to college. It was like you were getting stuck in a place where you could do nothing but think of all the bad things that’d happened. I wanted to get you of that place; I wanted you to have a new beginning. That is what we came here for.”

He wasn’t entirely sure he was making sense. Perhaps he shouldn’t have had that third beer with Dean.

Claire still wasn’t looking at him. Her lips were tightened on a hard line, like she was mad at Castiel for reminding her of all that. And perhaps he shouldn’t have, because her next words were:

“You know what, it was a stupid idea. I’ll just tell Alex I can’t go.”

“I don’t want you to do that, Claire,” Castiel said, but she wasn’t listening: she’d got out of the car and opened the gates. Castiel was expecting her to come back and drive all the way to the garage, but she briskly walked away. Castiel rolled down the window to call her: “Claire!”

His niece didn’t even bother to look over her shoulder. She just kept walking until the darkness of the meadow swallowed her. Sighing, Castiel jumped over to the driver’s seat. If he kept the gate open much longer and one of the horses got out, Meg would definitely slash his throat then.

In retrospect, perhaps it wasn’t the smartest idea. The horses were probably already in the stable, so he could have stand to go look for Benny to ask him to put the car away for him. But then again, he was a bit tipsy, so in his mind, it was far easier to drive towards the garage himself. He got lucky he didn’t hit anything or anybody.

He stepped outside and took a deep breath of the warm summer air. The night sky was covered in stars, bright and infinite over his head. That was a sight he never got to see living in the city, a small town starry sky. It looked a lot like the one he and his brother had observed in their telescope from their childhood home’s rooftop.

“I’m trying, Jimmy,” he muttered. “I’m really, really trying.”

If Jimmy had been there, he’d told him he knew that, but Amelia probably would have smacked him in the head and told him to try harder. He missed them very much, but he was certain his feelings didn’t hold a candle to Claire’s.

There was light in the cabin, but Castiel didn’t go there. Claire probably wanted to be alone and any attempts to talk to her would be met with a door slammed shut. So instead, he sort of wandered off in the darkness, uncertain where he was going or what he was looking for. Maybe someone who would tell him the magic words to make Claire feel better. Or to convince Meg to give him another chance.

What he found instead was _Morningstar_ ’s paddock. The colt was almost invisible in the night, except for the bright white spot in his forehead. For the first time since Casiel arrived, the horse seemed peaceful, sitting on the grass with his legs stuck underneath him. Castiel watched him from afar, not daring to make a sound in case it disturbed him. It was easy to understand why Meg was so fixed on riding that horse. He truly was majestic.

“I don’t supposed you can talk to her on my behalf, can you?”

“Novak?”

Castiel startled, because for a fraction of a second his drunken brain had thought the horse actually had answered him. Of course, even if he could talk, he wouldn’t have a raspy female voice, so the other option was that he was no longer alone there.

Meg strode towards him and stopped by his side.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Castiel mumbled. “Just thought the night was very pretty and I wanted to take a walk…”

“Are you drunk?”

Castiel didn’t even have the energy to pretend otherwise.

“I’m sorry, I know this is not very professional,” he said, rubbing his eyes and slapping his cheeks a little to look more awake. “It’s just… have you ever gone through a patch in your life where you feel you’re doing everything wrong?”

He figured Meg was going to tell him to get his shit together and stop acting like a complete moron, to go to sleep and get his bags ready in the morning. Instead, she leaned against the paddock by his side and stared at _Morningstar_ for a long while in silence.

“Yes,” she admitted in the end. She sounded defeated, exhausted, and suddenly all the things Castiel had found out about her that afternoon started bouncing in his head: there was a business mogul deadset on buying her home, her brother and her sister-in-law had left her to her own devices, the town’s people despised her…

Suddenly, he was seeing her under a new light. She was stubborn and angry, but so much stronger than people knew.

“How did you get over it?”

“If I ever do, I’ll let you know,” she replied wryly. “Is this because I fired you? Because Benny told me I should take that back for my own sake and I’m inclined to agree.”

“I really appreciate that,” Castiel said, wishing he could show a bit more enthusiasm than that. “But it’s actually about my niece. It’s… it’s complicated.”

“Yeah. Family’s complicated.”

“But what are you going to do? You love them anyway.”

“True,” Meg agreed. Castiel couldn’t see her expression, but she turned to put a hand in his forearm. He had the impression it was meant to console him. “Go to sleep, Novak. Tomorrow we start trying your method. I expect you to be in the stables by seven a. m. sharp, and I better not even notice your hangover.”

“You’re the boss.” He watched her turn around to leave and suddenly got the feeling he had to add something else: “Thank you.”

“You’ll change your mind about that in the morning.”

Castiel chuckled, because she was probably right. The night and the alcohol had let him take a peek behind her walls, but in the morning they would be back up, taller than before perhaps.

But he wouldn’t forget what he had seen.


	6. Reverse Psychology

Meg had already put the reins on _Satrina_ by the time Castiel arrived to the stables.

“You’re late,” she said, without even turning to look at him.

“It’s five past seven,” Castiel groaned.

Meg glared at him with one hand in her hip and a crooked eyebrow.

“And what did I tell you about your hangover?” she asked. “You look like crap.”

And with that little quip, she led the mare towards the paddock without even waiting for Castiel to follow her. He sighed deeply. The demon was back.

At the very least someone was happy: _Morningstar_ pranced around his paddock like he didn’t have a care in the world, but he actually stopped with his ears rigid in attention when his mother walked inside. _Satrina_ approached him and immediately started nuzzling his neck. After a few seconds, _Morningstar_ relaxed, and he didn’t throw a fit when Castiel put the reins on him and tied them up to _Satrina’s_ chair.

“We’re going to start with some gentle trotting,” he said. “And we’ll go from there.”

“You know this is just a crutch you’re going to have to ditch sometime, don’t you?”

Castiel turned around to tell Meg he was aware of that, but to his surprise, she wasn’t talking to him. She was palming _Morningstar’s_ neck until the horse stood still enough that she could mount him in one fluid movement. She cooked an eyebrow at Castiel once she was up.

“So?” she asked.

It took him a second to understand she wanted him to mount _Satrina_ and lead the way. Maybe she was right and his hangover was worse than he imagined.

The old mare started walking very slowly when he indicated her to, and _Morningstar_ followed obediently. Castiel tried to get _Satrina_ to go faster, but even though she was nicer than her son, it was easy to see where he’d got his stubbornness from. She started trotting, but then immediately went slower and it didn’t matter how much Castiel sank his ankles on her sides, she pointedly ignored him and slowed down the rhythm. It was as if she was saying: ‘ _Look, son, I’m old, I’ve raced my races. Just let me enjoy the walk, will you?_ ’

Castiel gave up soon enough.

“I’m sorry, Miss Masters…” he said, looking over her shoulder.

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied. “He’s not trying to get rid of me. I count that as progress.”

 _Morningstar_ still looked a little bit tense, but he wasn’t bucking or trying to break into a sprint. Castiel also counted that as a progress, so he returned his attention ahead and let _Satrina_ keep going at her own calm pace.

“Oh, and Novak.”

“Yes, Miss Masters?”

“You can call me Meg,” she said. “Only the nuns at my old high school called me Miss Masters.”

Castiel found that odd enough to look at her again.

“You went to a Catholic school?” he asked, incredulous.

Meg avoided his gaze, perhaps a little embarrassed by the confession.

“I had some behavioral issues growing up,” she explained.

She didn’t seem to want to discuss that any further, so Castiel didn’t push it, but he made sure she didn’t see his face while he bit back a smile. He just couldn’t imagine Meg, of all people, enjoying the discipline of a school like that.

“And you can call me Cas,” he said, after a few seconds. “A lot shorter.”

“I’ll stick to Novak for now.”

Of course she would. Much like _Morningstar_ , it was almost impossible to get Meg to do anything she didn’t want to do. Now, if there only was a way to get the colt to want to race, that would be great. But one step at a time: they rode in silence for the most part, the colt following his mother whenever Castiel changed the direction or got her to halt and start again. He imagined Meg was imitating every one of his orders, so _Morningstar_ would get to understand what they meant. She had been very patient so far, and he was impressed, because he had figure Meg was the kind of person who always jumped the gun and…

“So how long do you think we have to keep at this?”

There it was.

“I reckon if we do this for some hours every morning, he’ll get used to the orders,” he explained. “I think it’s best if he has a fixed timeslot, so I can also take some time to train the foal…”

“Don’t bother. We’re selling him.”

Castiel had suspected as much, but he still tried to reason with her:

“The younger the training starts, the easier it is,” he explained. “If you sell an older foal without a good base, it’ll be worth less and it’ll be a lot harder to find a buyer.”

He was ready for Meg to argue, and by the long silence that followed, it seemed she was getting ready for the exact same thing. But she only sighed in the end.

“See, this is why I need a trainer. I only ride the horses; I have no head for numbers or anything like that. Ruby would have known all that stuff.”

“Was… Ruby my predecessor?” Castiel asked, knowing he was treading some very shaky ground now.

“Yes,” Meg said, her terse tone returning. “She had to leave because of… personal reasons.”

Castiel didn’t insist. He had the feeling Meg had had a falling out with her as much as her brother had.

“Well, I promise to do my best,” he said. They went quiet for a couple of seconds, but that was really awkward, so he felt compelled to bring up another topic of conversation: “So… when did you start riding?”

“As a hobby? My entire life. Professionally? Catholic school,” Meg replied. “The nuns didn’t let us wear make-up, they didn’t let us watch TV and they didn’t let us date. Horses were pretty much the only entertainment we had there and I already knew how to treat them having grown up here. So I was very popular with the girls.”

“I can imagine so.” What Castiel couldn’t imagine was that the nuns at Meg’s school were happy about that.

“I was also very popular with the boys at my brother’s school,” Meg continued. “The good old days.”

She sighed and when Castiel turned to watch her, she was looking into the distance with a nostalgic pout in her lips. She shook her head and turned to him with a smirk. It was the first time Castiel saw her smile like that. Or at all.

“How about you?” she asked. “What sort of shenanigans did you get into when you were in high school?”

“Oh, no, no shenanigans at all,” he assured her. “I went to a public school.”

“You can get into shenanigans going to a public school.”

“I tried not to,” Castiel said, scratching the back of his neck. “My mom worked all day, so it was just my brother and me. We had to keep our noses clean because we knew she’d be furious if she ever had to leave work to come deal with us.”

“Ah, come on, you must have done something rebellious in your teens,” Meg insisted. “It’s basically part of being a teenager.”

Castiel thought about Claire, and had to admit she was right.

“I… smoked. One time,” he confessed. “I had a coughing fit and never tried it again.”

Meg didn’t look like a demon at all when she laughed.

 

* * *

 

 _Morningstar_ was on his best behavior all morning which was probably the reason he started trotting and jumping the minute they left him free on his paddock again. Both Meg and Castiel sighed in unison, and then chuckled when they realized what they had done.

“Eventually he’ll get used to it,” Castiel assured her.

“I wouldn’t want him to,” Meg said. “He’s his own buckwild self and I wouldn’t change him for the world.”

She had that nostalgic expression on her face again and Castiel couldn’t imagine who or what she was remembering. In the end, she squared her shoulders and smiled again at Castiel.

“I think we made a lot of progress today,” she said. “Well done, Novak.”

If Castiel didn’t know her better, he would have believed that was actually a congratulatory statement. But of course, that might have been too much to ask. Meg stretched her arms above her head. She looked pretty satisfied.

“I’m going to take _Zeus_ for a ride,” she announced. “You can start working on the foal.”

“Do you mind if I eat first?” he asked. Meg turned to him with a frown, as she had never in her life heard anything about this ‘eating’ thing he spoke of. “It’s midday,” he reminded her.

“Right. Some people have lunch at this hour,” she commented, as if she didn’t consider herself part of that particular subset of human beings. She turned around to head for the stables, and Castiel had to hurry to keep up with her. “… you do what you want,” she was saying, as if she hadn’t even noticed that Castiel wasn’t walking by her side anymore and she’d just continued talking. Castiel wondered what it would take for her to slow down a little bit.

The discovered the stables were occupied and not precisely by horses. Benny was looking over an empty cubicle and nodding, very pleased with himself. Soft whimpers invaded the air.

“Oh, no.” Meg winced, as if she knew exactly what was going on. “How many are they?”

“Eleven,” Benny said, beaming like a proud father. “Seven boys and four girls. They all made it.”

“I told you to neuter her,” Meg complained. “And you better already have people willing to adopt them, because you are _not_ conning me into keeping more dogs here.”

Castiel looked over the cubicle. A large German Shepard dog was resting in the corner, licking eleven newborn puppies. They stumbled around blindly, some of them finding their mother’s nipples quite easily and sucking with clear delight. Others seemed to be sleeping peacefully, their little bellies raising and falling in a slow, calm rhythm. Most of them were black or dark brown, with only a couple of them having inherited the eyebrow spots from their mom, and as far as he could tell, there was only one with a little bit of white on their chest. They were actually quite cute, and Castiel had the impression Meg was really struggling to keep up her façade about not wanting to keep them while she observed them. In the end, she clicked her tongue as if she was frustrated and walked away from the cubicle.

And suddenly, he had an idea about what he could bring Claire as a peace offering.

“Can I have one?” he asked. “My niece said she wanted a dog and maybe this is…”

“Well, man, for the looks of it, I’d say _Cerberus_ ’ the father,” Benny said. “So they’re going to grow up to be big.”

“And unmanageable, and stinky,” Meg quipped. She had already turned their back on their conversation, looking for _Zeus_ ’ bridles and saddle.

“That’s a great responsibility,” Benny continued, as if their boss had said nothing. “Not to mention I can’t imagine a dog like this living in your little cabin.”

“I’m sure we can find a way so we can all be comfortable,” Castiel said. And maybe he was being overly optimistic, but then again, he needed some sort of opening for Claire to talk to him again. “May I?” he asked, taking out his cellphone.

“Go ahead,” Benny nodded. “I’m going to call Amy so she comes check they’re all healthy.”

“Tell her to bring the vitamins for _Calypso_!” Meg shouted at him. Benny gave her a little wave as if to indicate that he had heard her as he walked away.

The German Shepard lifted her head, her mouth open and her tongue out almost as if she was smiling when Castiel pointed the camera at her. Meanwhile, Meg had clearly finished saddling _Zeus_ ’, but she was still fuzzing around him like there was something on her mind and she wasn’t quite ready to leave without saying it just yet. Castiel took another picture just to make some time, but if she didn’t make up her mind to speak, he was just going to leave to show Claire the photos.

“You should get her to like horses instead,” Meg said, finally. She opened the door and guided _Zeus_ ’ outside. “There’s a career for her there.”

“How so?” Castiel asked, frowning. Of all the things he could imagine her saying, this was definitely not it.

“She’s tiny, she’s thin,” Meg pointed out. “She would make a good jockey, at least physically. And with the proper training, she could be a professional in a couple of years.”

Castiel suddenly remembered when she had asked Claire if she liked horses and how disappointed she’d been when the answer had been a negative. She’d had this on her mind for a long while if she had waited this long to bring it up again.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Castiel shook his head.

“Why not? It’s not the worse job she could get. It just requires some diet and exercise. And I could teach her.”

Castiel opened her mouth to tell her he had seen her method of training and how it involved falling a lot, which wasn’t healthy in his opinion. But he had the impression that would lead into another fight, and he wasn’t willing to break the fragile peace they had achieved that morning.

“First you would have to break her of her strict diet of junk food,” he said instead. “I don’t think that’s a sacrifice she’d be willing to make.”

Meg clicked her tongue again. It was obvious she did that whenever she was frustrated. She pulled from _Zeus_ ’ bridles until they were both outside the stables and then she mounted him with the same ease as usual.

“Well, at least tell her to think about it,” she said. “She’s young. She could make an excellent rider.”

She started riding away without her usual rush, perhaps waiting for Castiel to give her an answer then and there. Of course, that was too much to ask, but then again…

It was a long shot, but Castiel figured he’d give it a try anyway.

“Would you be willing to hire her?” he shouted.

Meg pulled from the reins to stop _Zeus_. “Hire her?”

“To help around the ranch,” Castiel explained. “She needs a part time job and it would be best if she doesn’t even have to leave for it. She could clean the stables, or help Benny with the dogs, or she could help me. Maybe working around the horses would make her less wary of them.”

Meg hesitated, as if that wasn’t what she had in mind exactly, but in the end, she shrugged.

“Sure, why not? There’s always something to do around here.”

She sank her heels on _Zeus_ ’ sides and the horse broke into a trotting that soon became a fast sprint. In less than two heartbeats, she was already far away from him again. Castiel wondered if Meg had ever been compared to a centaur, and if she would find it offensive.

When he returned to the cabin for a quick lunch, Claire was on the couch, in a cocoon of blankets and reading. There were empty plastic bags of snacks in the coffee table in front of her and Castiel didn’t even want to imagine that had been Claire’s breakfast.

“Hello,” he greeted her tentatively.

Claire only turned the page, as if Castiel talking wasn’t more interesting than the breeze.

“How was your morning?” Castiel insisted. Nothing from his niece. He sighed and opened the cupboards to find their reserve of ramen was running low. “Are you just going to give me the silent treatment all day?”

Apparently, the strategy didn’t work as well if he called her out on it, because Claire huffed and put the book down.

“What do you want, Castiel?”

“Just making small conversation,” Castiel replied, trying to sound casual. He put the ramen to bowl and turned to her. “Do you want to tell me about your morning?”

“It was fine.” Claire immediately turned her attention back to the book, as if it that was the end of it. But Castiel wasn’t willing to let go so easily.

“Did you hear from your new friends? Alexis and Ben?” he said, hoping he was remembering the names correctly. Claire didn’t dignify that with an answer, so Castiel attempted another strategy. “Oh, the puppies were born!” he said, as he only now remembered them. He walked around the couch and held her cellphone in front of her so she could see the pictures. “Remember Benny told you about the puppies?”

He could see her physically struggling not to crack a smile, because even her grumpiness couldn’t resist newborn puppies.

“You still want to keep one?” Castiel asked. Claire raised her eyes at him, and again, it was easy to see she wanted to give an enthusiastic yes. Castiel just had to push her there: “Of course, I understand. It’s a lot of work. Don’t worry about it.”

He attempted to put his cellphone away.

“Wait!” Claire stopped him. “Who said I didn’t want one?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Castiel stroke his own chin. “It’s a big responsibility, Claire. You would have to train it and buy food for it and all that stuff.”

“What, and you think I’m not up for it?” Claire asked, almost offended for a second, but then she squinted her eyes at Castiel. “Oh, I see what’s going on. You’re trying to use reverse psychology on me.”

“Of course not,” Castiel lied, walking away towards the kitchen. “Are you having lunch?”

“Microwave ramen is not lunch.”

“And a bag of cheese balls is?”

Claire had nothing to say against that argument. She closed her book and followed Castiel’s movements closely. He tried not to keep his cool about it, but it was difficult not to crack a smile when she spoke again:

“If I promise to get a job,” she started very slowly, like it was hard for her to get the words out, “can I have the puppy?”

“How about, if you get a job and manage to keep it until the puppy is ready to leave its mom?” Castiel counteroffered.

Claire was clearly unhappy that she had walked right into that, but she couldn’t back down now.

“Fine,” she agreed, finally. She made it sound like she was accepting a challenge.

“And you come with me to town and get a car from Bobby,” Castiel continued. “I’m not your chauffer; you should drive yourself if you need to take the puppy to the vet.”

“Ugh, okay.”

“And you’re going to the party this Friday.”

“Don’t push it.” Claire cringed, but Castiel had come too far to back down now.

“Why not? You said you wanted to go.”

“I wanted to hang out with Alexis and Ben some more,” Claire explained. “Then I realized there was going to be a lot of people there who I don’t know and probably don’t want to hang out with.”

“You also didn’t want to hang out with Ben at first,” Castiel reminded her. “Maybe you’ll find more people you like there.”

“Highly doubt it.”

Castiel sighed and conceded he had already got a lot further than he’d thought he would. The puppy had been a very effective bribe.

“Hey, do you think the Masters has a job for me around here?” Claire asked. “It’ll save me a lot of gas money.”

Most effective indeed.

 

* * *

 

“Really?”

The pregnant mare stared at her like she didn’t know what Claire was talking about. As if she haven’t just raised her tail and drop some more dung all over the stable’s floor that Claire had _literally_ just cleaned.

“Forget it,” Claire shook her head angrily. “I’m not doing it. I’m done here.”

The mare looked at her with her big stupid eyes and Claire stepped backwards very slowly. She still had the feeling the horses were going to charge at her the second she looked away, it didn’t matter how much her uncle had assured her over and over that they wouldn’t.

The mare didn’t charge at her. She simply stepped into her cubicle and started peacefully roaming her food. Claire looked at the pile of dung in the middle of the stable and turned around… only to find the Masters standing right behind her and looking at her with a crooked eyebrow.

“I assume you’re going to find a hose to clean that up,” she said, in a whisper that was almost threatening. And suddenly Claire understood why Castiel always returned exhausted and like he had just been through hell after each day of work.

“Yes,” Claire muttered. “Of course.”

“Good,” Meg replied, with a smirk that did nothing to soften her features. “And when you’re done, bring me the combs.”

Claire bit her tongue before adding something along the lines of “Say please”. She found the combs and brushes in a bucket near the door and brought them back to Meg. She was leaning behind the other white and grey horse, picking up his hooves and inspecting them carefully.

“Won’t he kick you?” Claire asked. What was she supposed to do if the horse kicked her boss in the face? Should she run for help? Should she stay and try to help her?

“No, _Zeus_ ’ used to this,” Meg replied. She put the hoof down and moved to crunch next to the other. “Where are those brushes?”

Claire left them close enough for Meg to reach for them, but far enough she could run like hell if the horse tried anything funny. He didn’t. He remained perfectly still as Meg picked inside his hooves with a metal instrument.

“These are to make sure there aren’t any pebbles or other things that might hurt him,” Meg commented. “If there are, he might fall over when he tries to run.”

“And?” Claire said and then she remembered she probably couldn’t get away with being rude to her as often as she did with her uncle. “I mean, why are you telling me this?”

“I noticed you staring.” Meg shrugged. “I figured you’d like to know.”

Claire realized she had indeed been staring (out of paralyzing fear, not curiosity), so she immediately got back to work. She turned on the hose and washed the dung out with as much pressure as she could. When she came back with the mop, Meg had moved on to brushing the horse’s body with very slow, deliberate moves.

“Why are you doing that?” Claire asked. “Don’t you have people like Benny and me to do it?”

“Grooming is a very important part to keeping a horse healthy,” Meg answered. “To them, it’s also a form of bonding. That’s why I choose to groom the horses I know I’ll be riding.”

She turned around to look at Claire with the same smirk as before and the girl immediately regretted she asked when Meg added:

“But since you’ve been so generous to volunteer, you might help me.”

Before Claire could point out she still had to mop the stable’s floor, Castiel had the bad idea to return with the chestnut foal behind him.

“Ah, Novak, right on time,” Meg said, and in two wide strides, she stood in front of him and handed him the bucket. “Why don’t you show Claire the basics of grooming so she can help us?”

And that was when Claire knew she was utterly fucked.

“Really? You want to learn?” Castiel asked, his eyes lightning up. “Of course! Come here, I’ll show you.”

“I should…” Claire started, showing the mop, but Meg wasn’t going to let up so easily.

“You can leave that to Benny,” Meg said simply. “Go ahead; I’ll be over here finishing with _Zeus_.”

Before Claire could protest further or try to find a way to wiggle out of it, Castiel pulled from the foal’s reins and stationed him right before Claire.

“Alright, so we can start with the coat,” he said, handing Claire the brush. “You want to make long, slow movements, make sure you cover every surface…”

Claire tried, but she either moved to fast or brushed too hard against the foal’s skin, because he stomped on the floor and tried to get away. Claire also stepped backwards, but her uncle stopped her.

“No, don’t be scared, he won’t hurt you,” he insisted. “He just needs to get used to it. Try again.”

Claire did, still not sure what that was supposed to gain. She glanced at Meg through the corner of her eye to try and see how she was doing it, and she caught her smiling with immense satisfaction. Like she had just accomplished a very difficult task and now she could kick back and enjoy the results.

And Claire wasn’t sure exactly how, but she felt both manipulated and immense respect for the fact Meg had manipulated her. And she hadn’t even tempted her with the promise of a puppy.


	7. Awkwardness Overload

“Well, what do you think?”

Claire thought the car looked every bit like a death trap. It was a small 1989 Volkswagen Beetle, with the windshield cracked, the roof sank in a weird u shape and the right wing mirror hanging like it was about to fall down. She glanced at her uncle who, for once, seemed to be thinking the same thing as her.

“Uh… maybe we can get something… a little newer?” he said, cringing. “And bigger. Something more… resilient?”

“You don’t know what this kid has been through,” Bobby said, patting the car on the boot. The wing mirror shuddered and fell to the ground, lifting a small cloud of dust around it. Bobby sighed, apparently realizing what they meant. “Come this way.”

Claire doubted very much they were to find something from after the year she was born as the advanced through the rows of cars parked in the scrapyard. It seemed Bobby Singer had a habit of finding the oldest, most wrecked cars, getting them for next to nothing and then charging people to fix them up so they were actually drivable. It wasn’t a bad business model, but Claire was far too environmentally conscious to buy one of those enormous muscle cars that seemed to eat gasoline like she ate candy.

“We don’t want anything fancy,” Castiel was saying as he trotted behind Bobby’s heels. “Just something that Claire can use to come and go. It doesn’t necessarily have to be fast or anything like that, just…”

“We’ll find something,” Bobby assured him. “Don’t worry about it.”

Claire looked around with skepticism and said nothing. She had suggested they took the weekend to go to “the city” and see if they could find something else, but Castiel insisted that Bobby had had cars Claire definitely could afford and would give her the possibility to pay for it in monthly fees. Claire had the impression that if she showed up driving a car they hadn’t acquired from Bobby, they would be made pariahs in the town and Castiel was trying _so hard_ to fit in she didn’t have the heart to tell him no. But she did sigh and look unpleased by all the cars the old man kept showing them.

“Do you even have something this side of 1990?” she asked after a while.

“Why would I have that?” Bobby asked with contempt before Castiel could remind Claire of her manners. “They never made it as good again.”

Claire was about to say something again, but then her nightmare became real: a few rows ahead of them, there was a pair of legs sticking from beneath a car, and Ben was leaning right against it, reading a comic book and nodding along to whatever the guy underneath the car was saying.

“You know, I changed my mind,” Claire said, quickly turning her face in the hopes Ben wouldn’t see her. “The Beetle seemed fine; let’s just get that one.”

“You hated it,” Castiel pointed. Maybe he wasn’t as clueless as he thought, but this wasn’t the moment for insightfulness.

“I… didn’t hate it. I just thought it was a bit of a fixer upper,” she lied through her teeth. “A new coat of paint and it’ll be ready to go, right?”

Castiel squinted at her, clearly not buying what she was selling, but she really didn't have the time to feel bad about or to insist she totally wanted the shitty car.

"Hey, Claire!" Ben called out and Claire closed her eyes. Was it too late to run for her life?

A second later, Ben was standing in front of her, a friendly smirk on his lips. "Hey."

"Hi." Claire was pretty certain her smile came out more like a grimace, but nobody could blame her.

"You didn't come to Josephine's party," Ben pointed out, as if he was auditioning for the role of Captain Obvious all of the sudden.

"Nah, I started working and I was kind of tired," Claire said, and at least that was kind of true, unlike the thing that came out of her mouth next: "And plus my uncle wouldn't lend me the car, so..."

Luckily for her, Castiel had walked away to greet Dean (to whom the legs beneath the car belonged, apparently), so he couldn't undermine that lie.

"That sucks," Ben replied, empathically. "But it was kind of lame, so you didn't miss too much. Alexis asked where you would be, though."

Claire absolutely did her best to ignore the pang in her chest as those words. She wasn't going to inquire any further about this. Not at all. She was totally going to play it cool and not act like a completely clueless idiot with a crush…

"Really? What she said?"

Immediately, she started cursing herself internally, but if Ben noticed it, he didn't show it. He just shrugged.

"Just that it was a shame you couldn't make it. But, hey, now you're getting a car, you won't have to depend on your uncle's good will, right?"

"Right." Claire was ever so glad to have an excuse to change the subject. She looked around the scrapyard, cringing. "I just don't happen to see anything around here that catches my eye, sorry."

Ben acknowledged her doubts with a short nod. He scratched his chin (covered in dark peach fuzz like he was making an attempt to grow a beard that wasn't exactly going his way), and then eyed at where his stepdad, Bobby and Castiel were still chatting about whatever it was that old, lame men like them chatted about.

"Come with me," he said, lowering his tone of voice as if he was about to tell her a secret. "I'm going to show you something."

Claire immediately got suspicious of that wording and stepped backwards. It was an instinctive act. Ben was a good guy (for what she had seen, at least) and of course, she couldn't go around life not trusting people. But still.

"What is it?" she asked, ready to run towards her uncle.

"It's right over here." Ben pointed vaguely over his shoulder, completely unaware of her sudden awkwardness. "Let's go."

He turned around and strode away without waiting for her. Claire still hesitated, looked over her shoulder to make sure her uncle was still within shouting distance and followed Ben without any particular rush.

"Is it too far?" she asked, still trying not to sound as apprehensive as she felt. "'Cause, you know, it's hard to walk over the dirt with sandals, and I don't think..."

Ben ignored all her protests as he stopped a little ahead of her and pointed at something with his magazine wrapped in a tube. Claire approached him very slowly and wished she was a lizard, so she could keep an eye on him and look at what he was pointing at the same time. But of course, she wasn't, so in the end, she turned her head very slowly to follow the direction of the magazine.

The car seemed as dirty and abandoned at all the others, but it was easy to see it was nowhere near as ruined. For one thing, the windshield and the lights were intact and underneath all the dust, its original red color was still noticeable in the elongated hood. It was stationed over cinderblocks and almost crowded by two smaller, more fragile cars. And she didn't know if the car looked sturdier by contrast or if it was just like that, but she immediately knew that was the kind of car she could get in a crash with and people would be asking if the other person was okay. Her carbon print was probably going to go through the roof driving it, but at that very moment, that concern was the last thing on her mind.

She had fallen head over heels with the thing.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked, stalking over towards it. "What model is this?"

"Ford Maverick, 1975," Ben informed her. "It's beautiful, isn't it? Dean put a new working motor on it a few weeks ago, but Bobby doesn't want to sell it..."

"Maybe Bobby has good reasons not to," Bobby groaned behind them.

Ben startled and mumbled something along the lines of an apology, but Claire didn't pay attention to him. She walked towards the car and opened the door. The inside smelled like gasoline and leather, and the windshield gave her a wide perspective of everything ahead of her. She snuggled on the seat and set her hands on the wheel. She didn't even need to close her eyes to imagine the open road in front of her, the wind coming in through the rolled down windows, the infinite horizon in front of her...

"Get out of there, girl," Bobby said, giving her a stern look through the window. "This car is way too much..."

"How much for it?" Claire asked without even thinking about it.

"More than you can afford," Bobby replied. "Now let me show you something you can actually drive…"

"Forget it," Claire replied. "This car is the only decent thing you have here. So unless you can magically turn all the other trash in something even better, I don't want anything from you."

Bobby looked offended and her uncle was already opening his mouth, most likely to chastise her for being rude, but Dean laughed out loud behind them.

"Tough client, huh?" he commented. "Come on, Bobby, you know you can do much worse."

Bobby scowled at his employee and then at Claire.

"I'm not going to sell it to someone who can't appreciate it," he declared. "So unless you can promise with absolute certainty that you're going to take care of it..."

"You're saying because I'm a girl I can't take care of a car?" Claire snapped. "The ninety-fifties called. They want their sexism back."

"Claire, for the love of God..." Castiel muttered, embarrassed, but Claire wasn't going to budge.

"I'm pretty smart. I can figure out when it needs waxing or a change of oil or whatever," she affirmed. "So excuse me, but I can’t really think of a reason for you not to sell it to me."

"Ten thousand dollars," Bobby demanded, as if just the naming of the number would scare her of her pretentions.

And yes, it was a pretty high cipher, but Claire had made up her mind. She wanted that car.

"Seven thousand."

"That is not what the Maverick is worth, girl," Bobby said, remarking the last word as if he wanted to prove a point that Claire had no idea what she was doing. "You either pay the prize for it..."

"It doesn't even have tires!" Claire protested. "And what guarantees me the motor is going to work? For all I know, you could have done a whack job at it and just be selling it to me with a second-hand death trap that's going to die after a couple of miles."

Dean, who had been smiling and chortling at the exchanged so far, immediately got serious.

"Hey, wait, I changed that personally..."

"Nine thousand," Bobby offered. "And I include the tires."

Claire bit the inside of her cheek. She only had six thousand saved up for the car, and that had taken literally years to collect. Maybe if she begged and humiliated herself by cleaning the horses’ butts, she could get the Masters to give her an advancement, but…

"Eight thousand," Castiel intervened all of the sudden. "Tires and all. That's as high as we're willing to go."

Claire stared at him, stunned. Was he going to put the extra two thousand? Did he even have them?

But then again, she would have been foolish not to take advantage of the offering, so she straightened her shoulder and spoke in her bluntest tone:

"Yeah. Final offer."

Bobby looked defeated, but he didn't stop scowling even as he reluctantly extended his hand towards Castiel.

"Actually, you should…" her uncle mumbled, pointing at her.

Claire climbed out of the car and accepted the excessively firm grip without cringing. She did her best to hold the old man's stare all the time they were shaking hands.

"I'll have it ready on Thursday," he told her. "Pick it up by noon or don't pick it up."

"I'll be here," Claire guaranteed him.

Bobby walked away grumbling under his breath something that sounded a lot like an offended: "Ninety fifties…"

Dean burst out laughing again as soon as Bobby was out of earshot.

"You know, I think it's the first time I see someone getting on Bobby's level like that," he commented. "Nicely done."

"Yeah, he might even respect you now," Ben added. He seemed genuinely impressed.

Claire shrugged, as if it had been no big deal, but inside she was smiling. It had been a while since she had wanted something as badly as she had wanted that car and the satisfaction she felt at knowing she was going to get it was far too enjoyable.

"I'm going to be sad to see this baby go," Dean commented, patting the Maverick in the hood. "Okay, let's go inside so we can start with the paperwork. And while we're at it, let me give you some advice on..."

"Don't worry about it, I can look it up on the Internet," Claire cut him off. It was Dean's turn to look deeply offended. "It's just a car."

Ben started choking on something, and if she had known him a little bit better, she would have said he was actually muffling a chuckle in the inside of his elbow.

 

* * *

 

Castiel offered going to the Roadhouse for lunch afterwards, but Claire had had enough socializing and bumping into people she didn't want to see for the day, so they headed back to Morningstar.

"It was really nice of Ben to show you the car," Castiel commented, because of his almost pathological need of making conversation. "He's a good boy. And… he kind of seemed into you."

"I wouldn't know," Claire said, without taking her eyes off the window. "I didn't notice."

Luckily for Castiel, he didn't suggest Claire should marry Ben and have five kids and a picket white fence house with him. In fact, he continued to stay in silence for a moment before adding:

“So you like that Alexis girl?”

If Claire had been driving, she probably would have stomped on the brakes out of pure surprise. As it was, the best she could manage was not to sound too obvious when she asked:

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, you were talking about her nonstop the other day,” he pointed out. “It seemed you got along quite well…”

“I met her for twenty minutes,” Claire said. She was pretty proud to recover her indifferent tone next. “I wouldn’t know if we got along or not.”

"Okay," Castiel said. And Claire almost wanted to beg him to leave the topic there, but of course he wasn't going to do that: "It's okay, you know?"

"What's okay?" Claire groaned, still avoiding his eye.

"If you want to… it's okay," he insisted, sounding every bit like a broken record. "You know I got your back, right? You can talk to me about these… things. About anything you need to talk about, really."

This was growing far too awkward for Claire's taste.

"I know. Thanks," she said, curtly. "Are we done with the family therapy session?"

Castiel sighed, but he didn't make the mistake to insist she should open up and talk about her feelings and whatnot. She appreciated that.

"Alright," he said. And he had to blow it up by adding: "If you have questions about…"

"Mom had the sex talk with me when I was thirteen," Claire interrupted him. "She had a book and everything. So… I’m good."

If she knew her uncle a little bit less, Claire could have sworn he sighed in relief, but she knew he lived for awkwardness and uncomfortable talks.

"Okay."

And this time, to Claire's relief, he really did let the topic go. Perhaps because they arrived to the ranch and they hadn't even rolled the car inside when the Masters passed by them like a breeze, mounted on _Zeus_. Did that woman ever got off the horse? Claire could count the times she had seen her on the ground at the level of the rest of the mortals in one hand.

Apparently, it was a day of surprises, because as they were parking the car inside the garage, the Masters appeared, dragging the horse behind her by the reins.

"How'd it go?"

It was like she wanted to make conversation. An actual, human conversation with them that didn't necessarily end with her ordering them around or manipulating them to groom her horses.

"Good," Castiel said, in the same awkward tone he used with everybody. "Claire found a car she liked."

"It's a Ford Maverick," she added, because if the conversation stopped there and they all stood in silence like complete idiots she was going to start screaming.

"I have no idea about cars," Meg admitted. "So whatever, congratulations on that. Andrea wants me to ask you to have lunch with us in the house."

The words rolled out of her tongue in an almost confusing rush. It reminded Claire of that girl in her theater club who was painfully shy and always pushed out her lines as fast as she could to get off the stage as soon as possible. But that didn't make any sense: the Masters was anything but shy (if Castiel complaining about her screaming nonstop was any indication), and besides… didn't Andrea worked for Meg? What kind of cook ordered her boss around?

Castiel seemed as confused as Claire felt.

"Uh… that would be nice," he muttered. "Yes, thank you."

"We start in fifteen minutes," Meg said, and that sounded a lot more like herself. "I'll get _Zeus_ to the stables."

"You need help?"

"It's your day off," she reminded him as she walked away with the horse without looking over her shoulder.

Castiel blinked several times before realizing his niece was staring at him.

"Really?"

"She caught me off guard!" he excused himself, raising his hands defensively.

"You do realize there's a high chance we are the lunch, right?" Claire suggested. "As in, she's going to wrap us up in web and eat our intestines."

"Come on." Castiel rolled his eyes as they walked out of the garage. "She's strict, but I don't appreciate the insinuation that she's a giant, cannibalistic spider."

Claire actually had to stop at that comment. He had complained about his boss (now her boss too) for weeks. Every afternoon that he returned with a tired face, dust on his clothes and a groan on his lips. He complained about the horse, he complained about Meg, he complained about his life in general. Claire had the distinct impression he hated it here and he was going to give up at any moment, but…

"You like her," she accused him, somehow managing to feel both personally offended that her expectations were fooled and amused that her uncle, the most socially inept person ever, had a crush on his boss.

"I… don't be ridiculous," he muttered, but the blush covering his unshaven cheeks said otherwise.

"Well, at least you don't hate her like you used to," Claire argued. "What changed?"

"Nothing's changed," Castiel insisted, despite being so obvious Claire could see through him like he was cellophane. "We've just… moved on from our misunderstandings."

Claire still wasn't convinced that was all there was to that, and of course, the opportunity to pull his leg was too good to let it pass by.

"Oh, okay, I see," she said, adopting the same condescending tone he had used with her in the car. "Just so you know you can talk to me about these things. I totally have your back."

Castiel didn't find her hilarious joke funny. He squinted his eyes at her while he opened the door to their cabin.

"Wash your hands," he ordered her. "And you better be in your best behavior during lunch!"

"Come on." Claire laughed in his face. "When have I ever embarrassed you?"

Castiel didn't bother to answer that question.

 

* * *

 

Truth be told, there weren't many embarrassing instances during lunch. The dining room (who the hell had a dining room those days, seriously) was very pretty, with cream walls and a wooden panel floors. The glass door let the sun pour in through the window, and from where she was sitting – in a table that was big enough to have at least another ten people over – Claire could see the swimming pool's waters glistening. It just seemed like a crime to play a prank in a place so pleasant.

Besides, she was sort of starving and the chicken with baked potatoes Andrea had made was the most delicious thing she had tasted in a while. Living on microwave ramen and cheese balls all the time made home cooked meals taste like a glimpse of heaven.

"This is very good, Andrea," Castiel said, because he was so polite and nice all the time. "Thank you."

Andrea grinned at him with those terrifyingly white teeth of hers.

"Thanks to you for accepting the invitation," she said. "I don't know why you don't come to eat with us more often. I keep telling these two I don't mind cooking for more people."

Both Benny and Meg avoided her gaze. Benny was munching a chicken leg as big as his hands, so he had an excuse, but Meg had been pushing her food around the plate for the last fifteen minutes, so it was all the more awkward for her. She huffed and looked aside like she hadn't even heard what was being said about her.

"I mean, it must be lonely living in that cabin so far away…"

"It's a five minute walk," Claire pointed out. She didn't know what game Andrea was playing, but she wasn't sure she wanted to be a part of it.

Andrea continued speaking, undeterred:

"It would be so much easier for everybody if you just moved here. We have a lot of unoccupied rooms…"

"Are you done?"

Meg's question came so suddenly and so harshly it almost sounded like a discordant note in whatever was the melody that Andrea tried to play. The cook's grin disappeared immediately as she looked down at her plate.

"Sorry," she said. "I was just suggesting…"

"Well, I don't remember asking you for your suggestion."

"Hey," Benny said. He managed to make that single word sound like a warning. He put his hand over Andrea's hand and glared at Meg, who glared back without a shadow of a flinch.

Castiel cleared his throat before the conflict could escalate.

"Actually I don't mind… do you mind?" he asked, turning to Claire.

"Not really," she said, shrugging. Mostly because she could sniff the high levels of drama hidden in that house, and she had enough drama in her life without adding them to it.

"We like having our own space," Castiel said, which was pretty much what Claire was thinking, but more politely put.

"There you go, they don't mind," Meg said, pushing the plate away from her. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"

"You're not staying for dessert?" Andrea asked her. "It's dietetic."

"Thanks, but no."

Meg walked away without adding another word. Andrea looked down, clearly disappointed that she hadn't got whatever it was that she was aiming for there, and started picking up the table.

"Let us help," Castiel offered automatically.

"It's fine."

It was amazing how fast that woman could move while balancing all those plates and a tray full of chicken bones.

"Don't worry, cleaning up clears her mind," Benny intervened when Castiel was getting up to follow her.

“Why she was so pushy about us being here?” Claire asked. Castel threw her a warning look, but the truth was evident for everybody involved, so she didn’t know why she had to keep quiet about it.

“It’s a… look, I don’t pretend I understand it,” Benny said, sighing. “She just thinks Meg is really lonely and needs someone else to hang around besides the horses and ourselves.”

“Why?” Claire kept asking. The weirdest part was that if the impromptu invitation had been Andrea’s idea Meg would even consider it. She was the boss. She could have simply refused.

“Well, she don’t have much of a reputation in the town, as I’m sure y’all noticed,” Benny explained. “So it’s going to be hard to find someone to replace us if we leave.”

“You’re leaving?” Castiel asked, his eyes widening with the surprise.

“Well, no, not right now, not in the foreseeable future,” Benny admitted. “But, uh… look, the ranch is in bad form. If the racing season doesn’t go well for Meg, we might have to find other jobs.”

Claire observed her uncle’s face very closely. He didn’t seem very shocked by the news that the place he worked in could go into bankruptcy at any minute, so she figured he must have known about it.

“Not you, though. She will hang on to you and the horses like there’s no tomorrow,” Benny continued. “But we’re expendable if the money starts running out, you know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t believe that,” Castiel argued, stubbornly. “You two are Meg’s friends, she wouldn’t fire you.”

Benny didn’t seem all that sure about that. It was obvious that a ranch so big couldn’t run with only two people working on it, so of course Meg had fired someone else before and Benny knew his and Andrea’s neck were next on the line. He finished what was left of his beer in one gulp and stood up.

“I’m gonna go check on _Lila_ and the puppies,” he announced. “Wanna come, Blondie?”

“Maybe later,” Claire said.

Benny shrugged and left the house walking heavily. Claire and Castiel remained seated on the dining room, awkwardly. In fact, Claire was pretty sure the day had reached some sort of awkwardness quota and now they were going into overload.

“Here’s a thought: we abandon this ship before it sinks,” she suggested. She wasn’t entirely joking.

Castiel sighed and picked up a wishbone from the couple of dishes Andrea hadn’t been able to take with her. He offered it to Claire.

“Really?”

“Wishful thinking has never hurt anybody,” Castiel said.

“Except everyone who’s ever followed an extremist religion.”

“Claire, please.”

He said with the seriousness of a life or death business. Like, if Claire didn’t pick that bone right there and made a wish, something horrible would happen to them. And honestly, after he’d been such a good sport about paying for a quarter of her car, Claire was in no condition to refuse him. She grabbed the bone with a resigned expression.

“At the count of three?”

“Whatever.”

They pulled, and to Claire’s surprise, she got the larger part. Castiel looked a bit disappointed, but he still smiled at her.

“Did you make a wish?”

“You know, you can have this one,” Claire said, putting it in his hand. “I wish whatever you wished for comes true.”

“Well, that’s very generous of you,” Castiel said. “Thank you. I wish for you to be happy.”

Claire was pretty certain about there being a rule about expressing wishes out loud, but it didn’t really matter. She rolled her eyes at her uncle, because that was easier than telling him she appreciated the intention.


	8. New Friends

Claire had not counted on the car being an excuse to send her away. Well, of course they didn’t actually _send her away_. They just sent her into town every other day to look for something that was needed in the ranch.

“Benny and Andrea are both really busy,” Meg explained to her, while she wrote down the things she needed Claire to fetch from the town and drew a map to the vet’s place. “If Dr. Richardson isn’t home make sure you leave a message for her.”

“You mean I have to go all the way there?” she cringed.

“Well, Benny can go,” Meg said with a shrug. “But you get to clean the stables again in his place.”

Clare grabbed the list and the gas money. At least, she reasoned as she got the car running, she could strut the Maverick around town for a couple of hours. They weren’t complicated things: food from the store, light bulbs, things like that. And horse food that she had to buy from the local veterinary, Dr. Richardson. Who just happened to live next door to Sheriff Mills… and Alexis.

She really hated small towns.

The Sheriff was working on her garden when she arrived the first time at Dr. Richardson’s house. Claire noticed her glancing at her out of the corner of her eye, but she shrugged it off and walked in the veterinary.

“Put it on her credit? Again?” Dr. Richardson said when Claire explained what she needed. “She’s been doing this for months.”

“I… I wouldn’t know, I only started working for her some weeks ago,” Claire explained, cringing because she only know realized she had walked into the store of a complete stranger and asked to take things from there for free. “Look, I really need…”

The woman shook her head. “You can tell Meg that next time she either sends you with the money or not to bother sending anyone again.”

Claire didn’t dare to discuss. Not only because Dr. Richardson looked like an extremely agreeable woman who probably didn’t say no a lot, but also because she was fully aware the Sheriff was just next door. She promised to inform Meg of what she’d been told and exited the store hoping the Masters didn’t freak out when she did.

“Hey,” someone screamed. At first, Claire didn’t pay much attention, but then the call came again: “Hey… Claire Novak, isn’t it?”

Claire stopped on her tracks. Sheriff Mills was standing next to her fence, smiling at her all friendly and kind, the pruning shears still in her hand. Claire immediately got into the defensive.

“I have my license,” she said, almost without thinking.

“Yes, I imagine you do,” Sheriff Mills replied, rolling her eyes like she was used to teenagers reacting with fear and mistrust upon seeing her. “Come closer, come on. Tell me how are things.”

“Things are… okay?” Claire said. Was she being interrogated? Was there something she was going to be asked to confess? She hadn’t noticed anything illegal going on at the ranch, but then again, she had spent half of the time there locked up in the cabin and the other half up to her ankles in horse’s dung.

“That’s great. Heard you bought that old piece of junk from Bobby.”

“It actually works fine,” Claire said, protectively placing a hand on the Maverick’s yellow booth.

Sheriff Mills laughed as if Claire had just made a very funny joke.

“My girl talks a lot about you,” she commented. “Guess it’s exciting to meet someone from the city, huh?”

“I guess,” Claire said, scratching her own arm with nervousness. “But, uh… I’m working for the Masters now, so I don’t have a lot of time to…”

“No, of course, of course,” Sheriff Mills nodded sympathetically. “In any case, you’ll see her in school in September.”

Claire wanted to say something outrageous and flat out untrue, like how she was going to be homeschooled by a sect of Satanist, but Sheriff Mills was so being so overtly nice to her that she couldn’t bring herself to. Instead, she said her goodbyes and drove back to the ranch.

The Masters didn’t took the news badly. At least not too badly. She clicked her tongue and cursed under her breath, but at least she didn’t explode in a string of endless frustrated screaming as Claire was half-expecting her to do.

“Guess I’ll have to go to the secret stash again,” she commented.

She was leaning on the paddock’s door, watching that infernal black horse strut around like he was the king of the world. Granted, Claire was actually not as scared of them as she had been before. Mainly of _Leggers_. But this asshole with the white stain in his forehead still freaked her the fuck out.

“So… is there anything else?” Claire asked, anxious to get away from that black curse.

“No, you run along now,” Meg said. “I’ll give you the money for Amelia tomorrow.”

Claire went away without telling her that the following day was Sunday and she was planning to spend it stretched as far as she could on her bed and ignoring the world. Dr. Richardson wouldn’t even open the store. In any case, the Masters would realize it sooner or later.

She made her way to the stables and stopped for a second to look at the horizon. The sun was falling on the property, elongated the shadows and bathing everything in a surreal orange glow. If someone had put a gun to her head and forced her to confess what she liked the most about living there, she would have to admit it was the sights. They didn’t have sunsets like that in the city.

She wasn’t sure it made up for the slow Internet, the maddening silence, her uncle’s attempts at establishing a connection and all the unnervingly nice people. But she had to be thankful for the small things, right?

Castiel and Benny were inside the stables, apparently discussing a matter of life and death if the seriousness of their voices was to be believed.

“I do not agree with this.”

“Well, I don’t care if you agree with this or not, partner. If I have to find a home for the little ones, I have to start by showing them where they supposed to do their business.”

“Letting them loose on the stables could alter the horses.”

“They’re used to being around dogs…”

“Dogs. Not hyperactive puppies who are just discovering the world and will insist on chewing and sniffing on everything.”

“You need to get your priorities in order,” Benny accused Castiel. “It’s the puppies you should be worried about. What if one of the horses decides to stomp on their little heads?”

“They wouldn’t that, would they?” Claire asked. She hoped the horror she felt at the idea wouldn’t be too obvious on her voice, but clearly she failed, since both men turn to her and started trying to calm her down:

“No, of course not, Blondie. I was just trying to calm your uncle…”

“All the horses are properly trained, they wouldn’t be so aggressive,” Castiel agreed. He went quiet for a second and then turned to Benny. “You should keep them away from _Morningstar_ ’s paddock, though.”

“I hear you,” Benny said with a shudder. “Still, I think these little guys are ready to see a bit of the world while I clean in here.”

Castiel sighed in resignation and nodded.

"Okay." Benny cracked his knuckles as if he was about to perform a very difficult task. "Here they come!"

He opened the cubicle and before Claire had time to get out of the way, _Lila_ broke into a run as if there was nothing she wanted more in the world than to escape her own children. The puppies ran after her, barking and stumbling on their short paws until they finally caught the rhythm and stampeded out of the stables. The only one of the horses that even seemed to mind was _Leggers_ , who looked out his cubicle's door as if he was wondering where that scandal was coming from.

Claire was about to say something about how they were never going to catch them again now when she realized her sneakers felt wet all of the sudden. She looked down ready to scream in disgust, but when the puppy that was chewing her laces looked up with his big brown eyes… she realized she couldn't.

"Hey, there, little one," she said, leaning down to pick him up. He was completely black, except for a single white spot on his chest. "You don't want to go on an adventure with your brothers and sisters?"

The puppy tilted his head, as if he wasn't entirely sure what Claire was talking about. Claire's heart clenched in her chest, and of course, the next thing she decided was that he was the one she was going to keep.

"Maybe you just need someone to give you a little tour," she said, holding the puppy against her chest like it was a baby. “This is the stables. You live here for now. And these big things are called ‘horses’. This is one here is _Leggers_.”

She held the puppy to the foal’s face and they both started sniffing each other with curiosity.

“No, he’s not!” Castiel protested. “His name’s not _Leggers_ , I told you that!”

“Well, he has to have a name!” Claire insisted. “And he’s all legs, hence… _Leggers_.”

Benny chuckled out loud while he entered the puppies’ cubicle with a bucket of water and a brush. Castiel apparently had been about to do the same with _Legger_ ’s mom, but he had decided to stop to argue with her.

“You can’t call him that!” he insisted. “He’s going to be a racehorse. He needs a name more graceful than that!”

"Do racehorses have to win their names, is that it?" Claire insisted, leaving the puppy on the floor again. "You just can't name him because he hasn't run yet?"

"No, it's not... it has nothing to do with that!" Castiel huffed. "It has to do with the poor horse having some sort of dignity."

"Why wouldn't he have dignity?" the Masters asked, appearing at the door. "By the way, Benny, why is there a bunch of small mutts running rampant and peeing all over my property?"

"Good boys," Benny nodded, still scratching the cubicle's floor. "Don't worry, I'll round them up when I finish here."

"Okay," Meg said, her face reflecting the same skepticism Claire felt. "Is anybody going to tell me why my horses wouldn't have dignity?"

Castiel glared at Claire. He started brushing Persephone's mane, making it a point not to address the boss' question. So the Masters promptly turned to Claire.

She breathed deeply, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, because she was eighty per cent sure what she was about to confess would definitely cost her the job she'd only just got.

"I named him _Leggers_ ," she explained, pointing at the foal.

At first, Meg just stared at her with pure incredulity, as if she couldn't believe that Claire would have the nerve to do something of the sorts. Claire braced herself, because she could the blood rushing to the boss' cheeks and it was pretty obvious that she was about to throw one of her infamous screaming fits. Even Benny and Castiel stopped what they were doing to raise their eyes at them.

"Oh, no," said Meg, lifting a hand and putting her over her mouth. "That's not good. That's not good at all. That's _terrible_."

Her shoulders started shaking, but not because she was holding back her anger. In fact, she was holding back her laughter, suffocating the chuckles against her open palm. Castiel's eyes shot wide open in surprise when Claire looked at him in search of an explanation. Even Benny seemed like he wasn't sure that was the reaction they should have expected.

Meg was laughing louder now and shaking her head, like all Claire had done was telling her a joke that was so stupid and bad that it rounded back to being funny.

"We have a theme going on!" Meg exclaimed, still trying to contain herself. "If you want to name the foal, you have to pick something related to Greek mythology or the Bible or something."

"Why?" Claire asked, narrowing her eyes out of confusion.

"Because... that’s how we do it here," Meg explained. "Where did you even get that name? Oh, my God, your uncle is right! It's completely devoid of dignity!"

“Thank you!” Castiel exclaimed.

“So can I call him _Leggy Jesus_?” Claire tried. “It’s from the Bible.”

She knew at this point she was just trolling, but it was worth it just to see her uncle hide his reddened face in the horse’s mane out of pure embarrassment while Meg laughed even louder than before.

 

* * *

 

The stable was cleaned and the horses groomed in about half an hour with the four of them working on it. Well, Benny, Castiel and Meg worked on it. Claire tried, but the puppy kept running between her legs and trying to chew on her laces, and even when Benny picked him and gave him a bone to play with, he still came back to lean its paws against Claire and try to get her to pick him up.

“I think _he_ adopted _you_ ,” Benny commented. “Some animals are like that.”

Claire wasn’t ready to admit in front of so many people that she wanted that puppy to come with her right then and there.

“Can I keep him?” she asked when they were finished. “I mean, isn’t he too little to leave his family?”

“Maybe you should wait a couple of weeks to try and take him to the cabin,” Benny agreed.

It was easier said than done: when the stables were ready to be closed, Benny used his dog whistle and _Lila_ came running, with at least five of the puppies trotting at her heels. He whistled a little bit more (because, honestly, how far could have they gone?) and more of them appeared one by one. Even _Cerberus_ , who was usually nowhere to be seen around his own kids, showed up to see what was going on.

“Roll call,” Benny announced: “One, three, five…”

He frowned and started again. There were only ten puppies rolling over themselves and biting each other on the cubicle now.

The eleventh one was chewing on Claire’s laces again.

“I don’t think he wants to stay here,” Claire said, resisting the urge to pick him up and hug him against her chest. “Maybe I could take him home? Do you have something of his mom that I can take with me? I’ve read puppies adapt faster if they have something like that with them.”

Benny seemed too baffled to answer. He turned to Castiel for a response because, in the end, he was going to be the one who was going to have to live with the thing.

“Fine,” he muttered. “But if you name him something along the lines of _Sniffler_ , I will take him away on grounds of negligence and cruelty, do you hear me?”

“I am great at picking names!” Claire protested. “It’s not my fault you can’t appreciate it.”

Meg was leaning against the wall, looking at them and grinning like their conversation amused her greatly.

“ _Sniffler_ is still better than _Leggers_ ,” she concluded. “You guys are coming to the main house for dinner?”

Claire was sure the only reason they accepted was because she caught them completely off guard.

 

* * *

 

On Monday, Claire finished her chores quickly and put the puppy in a box before getting in the car. She would have just put him in the seat and let him run free, but Benny reminded her it was the first time ever he was in a car and he could get motion sickness. So if the puppy vomited, it was best he did it inside the box.

“Drive carefully and come back soon,” Castiel told her, standing near the tracking field. Benny was putting some poles up along the track, and Claire had no idea what they were for, but she could swear she saw the pure concentration radiating from her uncle.

Meg was riding the hell horse in front of the garage. It glared at the puppy with uncontrolled rage and the poor thing cowered inside of his box. The evil thing just didn’t seem to like being ridden at all, and he totally looked like he reluctantly followed Meg’s order to stop.

“You’re going out?” she asked. “I thought you hated driving to the town.”

Claire wondered if she had been that obvious or if she owed her uncle for her boss knowing that tidbit.

“Is there anything you need me to get?”

“No, not at all,” Meg replied. The horse seemed to understand that was the end of the conversation, because it tried to keep walking, but the Masters held it in place. “We’re just having our first speed test today. Thought you might like to watch.”

“I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

Meg looked a little disappointed, but she got over it quickly.

“Try to be back soon. There’s a storm brewing over.”

Claire looked at the perfectly blue sky above her head and then back at Meg, wondering if all those falls hadn’t affected her brain.

“I know what I’m talking about,” Meg replied to Claire’s face.

“Okay, well, good luck.”

“And to you.”

Claire placed the box on the passenger seat and adjusted the belt so it wouldn’t move during the trip. The puppy stuck his head out and looked at her like he was wondering what she was doing.

“She’s a little bit weird,” she told the puppy while they left the ranch behind. “But I don’t think she’s half as bad as everyone says. Maybe she likes horses better than people. She has that in common with Castiel, at least.”

The puppy tilted his head.

“We’re going to see Dr. Richardson,” Claire explained to him. “You know her. Benny says she came to check on you and your siblings when you were born. But now that you’re being officially adopted, she needs to give you your shots and all that.”

The puppy yawned. He didn’t seem particularly concerned with those details, nor like he was suffering from motion sickness. Claire ignored the warning voice in her head telling her she should keep both hands on the wheel and stretched one to scratch him behind the ears.

“I’m still thinking of a name for you,” she told him. “It has to be something badass, because you’re going to be a badass sheprador when you grow up. So it can’t be something that’s cute now just because you’re small.”

The puppy started to try digging inside his box. The scratching of his paws against the cardboard accompanied Claire all the way to the veterinary clinic.

By the time they got there, the sky was no longer blue. The clouds had covered it with an ugly pale grey tone and there was a slight breeze blowing, cold enough Claire felt compelled to fish the hoodie her uncle always made her take from beneath the seat. So maybe Meg wasn’t completely off about the rain, but Claire didn’t think it would be more than a slight drizzle that wouldn’t stop her from driving back to the ranch.

Dr. Richardson was definitely not glad to see her walk into her store.

“I told you, as long as Meg doesn’t cancel her credit…”

“I’m not here for her,” Claire clarified.

The moment Dr. Richardson saw the puppy, all her features softened at once.

“Is this one of _Lila_ ’s?” she asked, petting his head. “Hello, how are you doing?”

The puppy tried to bite her fingers off, but instead of getting offended, Dr. Richardson asked Claire to come to the back so she could examine him.

“Everything seems to be in order,” she informed Claire after checking his eyes, his ears and his teeth. “Try giving him dog food for puppies dissolved into milk so it’s easier for him to chew, and remember you have to start potty training now, the sooner the better. He has to have his own space, so don’t let him sleep with you, okay?”

“Sure,” Claire said, as if the puppy hadn’t found a way to climb into her bed all on his own the past two nights. She had woken up to him moaning because he couldn’t get down on his own.

“Have you thought of a name yet?” she asked, as she turned around to prepare the shots.

“No,” Claire confessed. “It requires careful deliberation.”

Was that a Castielism?

Dr. Richardson laughed and turned to the puppy with the needle in the hand. “Now this will sting just a moment.”

By the way the puppy screeched and jumped into Claire’s arms, anyone would have thought the woman had just attempted to skin him alive. He cried and hid his face under her arm when Dr. Richardson came back with yet another shot.

“Oh, don’t be such a coward,” Claire said, trying to hold him in place while he wriggle. “Come on, it’s just a shot!”

He still cried out when the needle stung him.

“Stop it or I’m really going to call you _Sniffler_!”

“Okay, I will see you in a couple of months,” Dr. Richardson told her, giving her a calendar for her to mark the date of the next shot. “And tell Benny I found some people interested in adopting the rest.”

“Will do,” Claire promised.

She had to force the dog to get him back into the box, and by the time she was ready to leave, she discovered it was actually raining. Not a drizzle, but an actual full on rain, with tons of water falling from the sky, ready to ruin her in the short distance that she would have to run towards her car.

“Oh, dear,” Dr. Richardson muttered. “Hang on, I think I have an umbrella in the back.”

“That’s very nice, but don’t worry,” Claire said. “I’ll just run.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Claire assured her. She pushed the puppy down (he gave out an offended wine) and pulled the hood over her head. It was going to be one hell of a run.

She started regretting her inability to accept kindness from strangers the very moment she stepped outside. It was as if someone had opened a shower right on top of her head, and she knew she’d be dripping all over her seats if she managed to even cross the wall of water in front of her. To make matters worse, her puppy wasn’t a big fun of cold water… and much less from thunder.

A lightning flashed out of the corner of her eye while Claire held the box in one hand and tried to fish the keys from her pocket with the other. She didn’t have time to hold it properly before the thunder roared with such fury it almost fell like the entire sky would fall on her head. She startled as the box under her arm started shaking. A second later, the puppy had climbed out of it and jumped onto the street, sprinting on the wet pavement like a mad black stain of barks and howls.

“Wait!” Claire shouted, only now realizing that was what names were good for. “Wait, come back here!”

The puppy didn’t pay attention to her. He sprinted away, trying to bite the rain, but to Claire’s relief, he didn’t go to the street. Instead, he squeezed himself through the gate leading to Sheriff Mills’ yard. She was so sure he would get stuck, but that notion lasted only a few short seconds: the rain and the puppy’s own insistence made him slippery enough that he could pass.

“Come back here!” Claire screamed at him. She was shivering and soaking wet now, and she didn’t want to be arrested for trespassing (in the sheriff’s house, no less), but she really had very few options there. She would have to jump, catch the puppy and run back to the car before anyone noticed it.

The first part of that plan went well: the gate was low, so she only had to try once. But the puppy didn’t answer to her voice and much less when another thunder rumbled above him. His barking became almost as loud as the rain. Claire had to wonder how something with such short paws could move so fast.

“Dammit, come back!” she called him. “Come here!”

The puppy kept ignoring her, up until the point a third lightning flared away. He turned around trying to catch it… and in doing so, he put himself directly on Claire’s trajectory. She lunged forwards, slid on the mud and ended up on the ground with the puppy underneath her, but at least she could secure him in her grip as she got up.

“Look at this mess!” she told the puppy, exasperated, as he fidgeted in her hands still trying to get away. “Come on, we have to get out of here before…”

She never got to finish the phrase. The house’s door open with a din louder than any thunder. Sheriff Mills stood at the doorway of her home, scowling at her, and Claire tried to come up with an apology or an explanation or something to say…

“Get in here right this instant!” the woman shouted. There was something in her voice that indicated it wasn’t a good idea to disobey her, so shaking and trying to keep the puppy in place, Claire climbed the porch’s step.

“I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. “M-my dog got inside your yard and I w-was trying to catch him…”

“I said, get in,” Sheriff Mills repeated, putting a hand on her shoulder and practically pulling her inside. “Jesus, girl, do you want to get pneumonia?”

What happened next was kind of surreal: Sheriff Mills dragged her inside and wrapped her and the puppy in towels, all the while scolding her for not bringing and umbrella and for not putting her dog on a leash. She then pushed Claire to sit on a couch and notified her she was going to stay there until the storm had passed. Claire had to admit there were worse places to be stuck in: the living room was cozy and warm, especially with the rain tapping against the windows, and even her puppy seemed to calm down a little in there.

“You can’t drive back to the ranch in these conditions! Everybody knew there was a storm coming, how the hell did Masters send you here?”

“S-she didn’t,” Claire tried to defend her boss, but Sheriff Mills didn’t seem like she was paying attention, rambling on and on about responsibility and teenagers.

Alexis came down the stairs practically running.

“Here are the clothes!” she announced, and upon seeing her on the couch, she got a little flustered: “Oh, hi, Claire, we… we saw you running on the yard and we thought…”

“Give them to her!” Sheriff Mills interrupted her daughter. “I will make tea right this instant.”

She left for the kitchen like making tea was a life or death mission she needed to accomplish. Alexis and Claire looked at each other. And almost like they had agreed upon it, they started laughing at the same time.

“Oh, my God, this is so embarrassing,” Claire commented while Alexis handed her the clothes. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, don’t be, it just happens,” Alexis said. “Can I hold your puppy while you change?”

Claire tried to ignore the fact she was changing in front of Alexis and pulled her wet clothes off. Alexis was almost the same size as her (well, Claire may have put on a few pounds since arriving to Northeast Haven and becoming an overeating hobbit) and she had brought her a pair of sweatpants and an oversized band shirt (Yellowcard, nice), so they were pretty comfortable.

“He is so cute,” Alexis commented, she rubbed the towels over the puppy’s fur. “What’s his name?”

“He doesn’t have one yet,” Claire said. “He’s a sheprador,” she added, almost as if she needed to say something to compensate the fact she still hadn’t named him.

“Give those to me,” Sheriff Mills said, startling her. She left the tray with steaming mugs over the coffee table and snatched Claire’s wet clothes from her hands. “I’ll put them in the dryer and they should be good. Alexis, don’t let that thing on the couch.”

“No, ma’am,” Alexis replied obediently.

The moment she was out of the living room, they started laughing uncontrollably again.

“I’m sorry…”

“Really, don’t worry about it,” Alexis said, leaning over to pick up the two of the mugs and hand one to Claire. The puppy, obviously exhausted from the adventures of the day, promptly fell asleep on her lap. “I’m actually glad to see you again. I was sort of starting to think you were avoiding me.”

Claire took a sip of the tea. It burned her tongue and her throat and it needed a bit more of sugar, but at least she didn’t have to answer to Alexis slightly accusing comment right away.

“Yeah, I just been busy,” she said, when it became obvious the silence was going to prolong for as long as she refused to say anything. “I started working on the ranch and… I got a puppy…”

“No, I get that, I get that,” Alexis replied. “I just… well, I sent you a Facebook request and you never accepted it… and some messages asking if you wanted to hang out some time, but you never answered, so I thought I might have said something or done something…”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Claire assured her. “I didn’t see it ‘cause the Internet at the ranch is torturously slow, so I don’t use it much.”

That sounded convincing because it was only half a lie, but the relief in Alexis’ face made Claire realize she would have believed her even if she had lied outright. The guilt in her stomach burned her more painfully than any tea.

“But I’ll accept it as soon as I get back,” she promised. And now there was no way she could squirrel out of it.

Alexis opened her mouth to answer, but then Sheriff Mills walked back in, with a phone on her hand.

“I just checked the forecast. Apparently this is going to be long,” she said, pointing at the rain outside. “You should call your uncle and let him know you’re alright.”

“Okay,” Claire said, desperate to find something to say the situation a bit less awkward. “Hey, well, it seems we get to hang out right now.”

Alexis blinked in surprise, but then a slow smile appeared on her face.

“I guess we do.”


	9. During The Storm

The track behind the house was about half a mile, as Benny informed him. It had been used to train every single one of the thoroughbreds raised at the ranch, and Meg wasn’t going to break that tradition for something as simple as her future champion being completely terrified of stalls.

Castiel wasn’t sure the time was right for what they were about to do, but then again, as Meg put it, they only had a month and a half until the racing season began, so time was of the essence. Of course, it would have been a lot easier to do if _Morningstar_ had been at all interested in collaborating with them.

“Come on,” Meg insisted. “Come on, it will only be a few seconds, you big coward baby…”

He didn’t care. Every time she tried to guide him inside the stall for him to start the “race”, the colt halted completely and refused to keep going, no matter how much Meg sank her heels in his flanks.

“It’s a battle of wills at this point,” Benny commented, while they watched them struggle at the edge of the track. “He lets her mount him, but is he going to run for her?”

“He has to,” Castiel said. “ _Persephone_ ’s foal won’t be ready to mount until next year, which means we will be losing an entire season…”

“Yeah. The ranch doesn’t have that long,” Benny determined, gloomily.

“You are going to get in there,” Meg growled. “Yes, you fucking are!”

Reluctantly, like he was fighting every step he gave, _Morningstar_ entered the stall, but he was huffing and hitting the ground with his hooves.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t close it,” Castiel suggested.

"No," Meg snapped. "We're done coddling him. He has to learn to stay still in here."

Castiel was a second away from pointing out her all or nothing method had failed spectacularly in the past, but this time, he had to admit they didn’t have many options: they couldn't put _Satrina_ in there with him and they couldn't bribe him with a treat. _Morningstar_ would have to learn the hard way. Benny closed the stall behind him, and the horse immediately started fussing, neighing and stomping his hooves on the ground again.

"Come on, boy," Meg told him, patting his neck. "It's not that bad. It's only for a few seconds. You can do it."

They waited another minute, practically holding their breaths until _Morningstar_ calmed down. Well, at least he calmed down a little, because Castiel still could notice his nostrils flaring and the veins in his neck bulging. This time it wasn't a matter of pride or hostility: the horse was sincerely terrified.

And sadly, exposure therapy was the only real solution to that.

"Okay," Meg determined, although she didn't sound as confident as she had other times. "Okay. I think we're ready."

"You sure?"

She leaned forwards, adopting a position as if she was already racing.

"Let's do this."

Castiel and Benny exchanged a look, and the two step backwards. Castiel aimed the gun at the sky, prayed that his boss wouldn't fall of the horse again and fired. Benny pulled the rope to open the stall right on time… and _Morningstar_ came out bucking and jumping and practically foaming at the mouth. Meg was holding onto the saddle for dear life and trying to get him to calm down, but it took several seconds until the horse decided to keep his legs on the ground… and then he started running, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.

Castiel was so busy worrying that Meg might fall and this time break her neck for real that he completely forgot to start the clock, but even without it, he could tell _Morningstar_ had broken some sort of record, because he was on the other end of the track in the blink of an eye. He didn't go further, though: Meg pulled the reins to get him to turn, but instead of doing that, Morningstar halted so suddenly in front of the fence it was a small miracle Meg didn't fly over his head.

She still let herself fall to the side, breathing heavily and trembling a little.

"Are you okay?" Castiel shouted, running towards them. Free of his rider, Morningstar was trotting away, dragging his rains on the ground and shaking his head, as if he had suffered a great offense.

"Yeah," Meg said. She held on to the fence with trembling knees, she threw her head back. She burst into uncontrollable laughter. "Oh, my God, that was horrible. Let's do it again."

Castiel's heart was still pounding in his chest. He had two options: scream at her that she was out of her mind or join her in the madness. Madness was starting to seem like the best option.

"Okay, okay." He rubbed his temples. "We got two problems here, and I think we should face them separately."

"I'm listening," Meg said. "I'm desperate," she added simply when Castiel crooked an eyebrow at her.

"Fine," he accepted. "Here's what we have to do."

Meg caught the reins and waited until the colt decided to stop moving to climb onto his back again. She guided him towards the start of the track, but she didn't try to guide him inside the stall.

"Ready?" Castiel asked.

Meg leaned forwards as an answer. He aimed at the sky again. She sank her heels on _Morningstar_ ’s flanks just as the shot echoed on the grounds. _Morningstar_ became a black blur in the distance and this time he did turn when Meg ordered him to. Castiel alternated between looking at them and looking at the watch, counting the seconds under his breath. _Morningstar_ passed like a breeze in front of him and he stopped the chronometer.

Forty nine seconds.

"Are you sure your watch is working?" Benny asked.

Castiel doubted that. He was pretty sure both his chronometer and his jaw were broken, because he couldn't bring himself to close it.

"Well?" Meg asked, turning _Morningstar_ over to get closer to them. The colt didn't look like it had broken a sweat. "How long it took?"

Castiel passed her the clock. He figured it was easier than explaining it to her. Meg blinked at it, perplexed. A slow, big grin appeared on her face.

"Would you look at that?" she commented, her eyes shining with glee. "On his prime, _Zeus_ ' record was fifty one."

 

* * *

 

Some people felt the impulse to rest on their laurels once they achieved something they had been wanting for a while. Not Meg, though. Castiel was learning that when things started going their way, she doubled down and made everyone work even harder.

She made _Morningstar_ run lap after lap, to the point where Claire would have been justified in accusing her of animal cruelty had she not taken breaks in between to let him drink water and stretch her legs herself.

The second best time was forty seven seconds. Then she managed to down that to forty six.

"I'm sure we can make forty five if we put our minds into it," she said. Castiel wasn't certain if he was talking to him or to the horse. "Let's do it."

"Meg, it's going to rain," Benny pointed out. "I'm going to round up the rest and take them to the stables."

If he had said that a couple of hours ago, Castiel would have told him he was insane, but now there were grey clouds amassing in the sky and his mind wasn't really on the track. Claire should be coming back by now, right? She knew how to drive, but he sure hoped she didn't have to do it on the slippery road…

"Hey, Novak." Meg snapped her fingers in front of him. "Pay attention. We're going to run another one."

"Is that really necessary?" Castiel asked. "I think you've done as much as you could today. And _Morningstar_ is exhausted."

"No, he's not, he can go for another while," Meg insisted.

 _Morningstar_ threw them an openly pitiful look. He was no longer squirming or trying to bite anybody. It seemed like they have finally found a way to tame him: they just have to overexert him.

Meg huffed after taking a second look at him, apparently reaching the same conclusion as him.

"Okay, fine," she admitted begrudgingly. "We can continue tomorrow. And as soon as we break forty five seconds, we start getting him used to the stall again."

"That's not... Meg." Castiel grabbed her by the shoulder before she could walk away. "You need to be careful with him, okay? You've put so much money and effort into this horse, you can't risk hurting him."

"And I can't risk all those resources being for nothing," Meg replied. "So, what do we do?"

Castiel wished he could give a satisfying answer to that question. Luckily for him, the gods of nature decided he didn't need to find one right then: a lightning flashed in the distance and thunder came rolling down over their heads. He shuddered, wondering when that freezing wind had started blowing.

"We have to take him to the stables," Meg determined. "We can't leave him out in the storm."

At least on that they agreed.

It was, as many things in the ranch, easier said than done. The thunder had apparently reawaken _Morningstar_ 's spirits and he once again had to pulled, coerced and bribed to get him to move. While they were busy with that, it started drizzling and by the time they got to the stables, thick, big drops were hammering on their heads. When he realized he was to be locked in there, the coal planted his hooves on the ground and stubbornly refused to walk inside.

"Oh, I swear, you're half mule!" Meg exclaimed frustrated.

"You shouldn't have left him alone on the paddock for so long," Castiel commented. "It only made him more antisocial."

"Why, thank you, do you mind going back in time to tell my past self that?" she asked, her voice drenched in sarcasm. "Oh, you can't do that? Then is it too much to ask for a solution now?"

Castiel suddenly remembered why he preferred Meg when she was on a horse. He took out _Satrina_ out of her cubicle. _Morningstar_ still hesitated, but in the end he followed his mother inside. Castiel locked them in the same stall and made sure they had food and water before joining Meg on the door.

The rain had become a downpour. There was absolutely no way they could walk out with their clothes intact. They had two options: to wait there with the horses until the rain stopped (which seemed unlikely to be any time soon) or to run underneath the cascade towards the house.

Meg was already kicking off her boots.

“Really?” Castiel asked while she picked them up in one hand and stared at the rain like she was about to engage in a battle of wits with it.

“You can stay if you like,” she said. “There’s no way I’m going to be stuck here for hours, you hear me? I’ve got things to do.”

She ran off before Castiel could ask her to clarify what things she meant.

“Meg!” he called her. “Meg!”

She didn’t hear him. Her black hair had become a blurry spot in the distance and the rain was falling so hard he doubted she would hear him even if he screamed his lungs out.

“You could have at least helped me close,” he complained.

Usually Benny helped him pull the heavy doors of the stable, but this time he had to do it alone, on top of standing under the cold shower while he fiddled with the padlock until he managed to close it. Last thing they needed was to have to catch a scared horse in the storm.

Afterwards, he stayed underneath the very thin eaves and realized he could have been a lot warmer if he had stayed inside the stable. Well, there was no turning back now. He took off his boots too and took a deep breath. He only had to walk all the way to the cabin, how bad it could be?

He waded through the field more than run, ignoring the splashing sounds underneath his socks and the cold and wetness sipping in through his clothes. If he didn’t catch at least a cold in those circumstances it wouldn’t be because the weather wasn’t trying to help him. At least the part between the main house and his cabin he could do under cover: he walked around the cobbled edge of the pool…

The dining room’s door burst open.

“Get in here!” Meg screamed at him from the inside.

The surprise was so big Castiel stopped on his tracks and stood there dripping and blinking at her as if she had just insulted him in a foreign language.

“Come on, you’re going to get sick!” she insisted. “And like hell we’re going to lose weeks of work while you recover.”

Yeah, that made a lot more sense. Castiel walked inside, mentally apologizing to Andrea for leaving a pool of water on the carpet. Meg grabbed his arm and pulled him inside with her usual impatience before dragging him to the living room. Her hair was still wet, but she had changed into an oversized white shirt, sweatpants and slippers in the time it took Castiel to get there. She had obviously been expecting him, because there was a dry towel on the couch’s armrest. Meg took it and threw it at his face.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she urged him. “You need to take a shower.”

Castiel wasn’t sure what was going on, but in his confusion, he didn’t dare to question her. He had never been to the second floor of the main house, but it wasn’t much different than the first floor: the wallpaper was a calming blue that matched with the carpeted floor, there seemed to be a lot of rooms at both sides of the hallway. He wondered if one of them was where Benny and Andrea lived, but he was sure the one at the end was Meg’s. It was the only one he could see from his window in the cabin.

Meg opened one of the doors and practically pushed Castiel inside a white tiled bathroom.

“Take off your clothes,” she ordered. Castiel stared at her, not sure what to say to that. “Come on, what are you, a virginal maiden?”

“No,” Castiel replied, irritated. “I’m just wondering what you’re going to do with them.”

“Sniff them and roll in them naked because I secretly love you, what do you think?” she snapped back. “I’m going to put them in the dryer.”

He couldn’t really argue with that. He unbuttoned his shirt and had to resist the urge to squeeze it before handing it over. The same happened with his jeans and…

Meg huffed and turned around. Castiel appreciated that, if only because then she couldn’t see him blushing like… well, like a virginal maiden.

“I’ll see if I find you something to wear,” she announced once she had them all.

Castiel had to close the door behind her because she couldn’t be bothered to do it. He thanked God neither Andrea nor Benny walked past at that moment.

It took him a moment to regulate the shower. It had a crystal door that made him feel insanely exposed when he stepped into it, but at least the steam tarnished it fast. He didn’t realize how cold he really was until the hot water streamed down his back and face, and with a sigh, he let it fall over him with his eyes closed. He could have stayed there for hours if it hadn’t been for the sudden realization he was in Meg’s shower and she was probably going to come back soon because she could never take a damn break or slow down.

Sure enough, as soon as he had turned off the water and wrapped his waist on a spongy white towel, there was a knock on the door.

“You presentable, Virgin Mary?”

Castiel gritted his teeth, and maybe to prove he wasn’t as much of a prude as he was making him out to be, he opened the door while holding his towel with one hand. Meg seemed like she was about to dish out another snarky comment, but it died on her lips as her eyes lowered down. Castiel had the strange sensation she was examining his body, and suddenly, he did regret being so forward.

“Uh…”

“Found you something,” she said, shoving the bundle of clothes into his hands. “My brother and you are about the same size, so… should be fine.”

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“Come downstairs when you’re done. Andrea made us coffee.”

He watched her leave, wondering why the hell she suddenly was so grumpy. Then again, Meg didn’t need an excuse to be grumpy.

The clothes were a little big, but not as bulgy as if they had been Benny’s, for example. He wished he had a belt to hold the jeans, and Meg had apparently picked the most hideous shirt she could find: a burgundy monstrosity Castiel wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing if he hadn’t been in an emergency. If Claire could see him now…

Those thoughts chilled him to the bone. The storm was still raging outside and Claire hadn’t returned from the town.

He practically flew downstairs, wondering what Meg had done with his phone. It was in his jean’s pocket, if she hadn’t been careful enough…

The living room was warm and bathed in a nice golden light when he walked into it. Meg was on the couch in front of the chimney, with her legs stretched on top of the coffee table and watching the flames danced.

“Your niece called,” she informed him, pointing at the phone next to the platter Andrea had left for them. “Said she’s fine, at a friend’s house. She’ll drive back when it stops raining, but at this rate, I told her to ask her friend if she could sleep there.”

Castiel was relived for maybe half a second before the realization hit him.

“Claire doesn’t have any friends in the town,” he said, grabbing his cellphone. “Did she mention any mention any name?”

“Nope, I didn’t ask,” Meg shrugged and when Castiel glared at him, she huffed again. “Hey, the kid is your responsibility. If you’re so worried, call her up and ask her yourself.”

Castiel did just that. Claire sounded… relaxed on the other end. Like she had been laughing a second before she picked up the phone.

“We’re fine,” she told him. “We’re just with Alexis and _Bilbo_ watching a movie…”

“ _Bilbo_?”

“My dog,” she clarified, as if Castiel should have known that was what she had decided to call the crying hairy mutt after two days of hesitating and letting him on the couch even though he’d told her not to. “Uh, Alexis’ mom’s also here. She wants to know if you want to talk to her.”

“Yes, please, put her on.”

“Don’t worry about a thing, we don’t mind having her here,” Sheriff Mills said. “She can stay as long as the storm lasts, no problem at all.”

“Thank you, sheriff…”

“Please, call me Jody.”

Castiel ended the call a lot calmer. Since Meg had taken up most of the couch, he flailed down on one of the arm chairs to the side.

“She’s at Sheriff Mills’ house.”

He figured she would say something along the lines of _'And why do I care?_ ', but instead she shrugged and took another sip of coffee.

"Tough woman," she commented, as if that was the highest compliment she could give to the sheriff.

"Yes," Castiel said, awkwardly. He picked up the cup of coffee left for him. It took him a couple of seconds to realize there were only two. "Uh… Andrea and Benny aren't joining us?"

"Nah." Meg shrugged again. "In days like these, they like to organize the attic. I have no idea what exactly they're trying to organize up there, but to each their own, I guess. I personally like to sit down and mope."

Castiel glanced at her, a little confused. It seemed as if she had lost a bit of her fight thanks to the rain, as if she had used up the last of her energy left to bemoan him for not wanting to undress in front of her and now all she wanted to do was lazily sip some coffee and stare at the fireplace.

Except she was actually staring at the shelf on top of it. Castiel followed her eyes. He hadn't been at the living room long enough to notice those pictures before, or if he had, he hadn't really stopped to look at them.

It showed Meg and two other people in what he had to assume were better times. In one of them, she was dressed up in her jockey clothes, with a dark blue jacket and a black helmet. She had an arm around the shoulders of a dark-haired woman and a young man with a beard. There was another of the three making funny faces around a black goat with enormous horns that looked immensely bored with their shenanigans. They were standing in front of _Zeus,_ who had a crown of flowers around his neck. In another one, the same dark-haired woman was wearing a white dress and holding a bouquet of flowers, while Meg and two other women (a redhead and a blonde) stood around her, all wearing lavender dresses and smiling for the camera. In the third picture, the bride was standing right next to her groom, the same bearded guy from the first picture.

“Those are the good old days,” Meg commented, startling Castiel. “Before the ranch became the butt of the joke in this town and a black hole that eats up all my money.”

There was nostalgia in her tone, a melancholy in her face and her slumped shoulders Castiel had never seen before. He had started to think Meg had only two moods, obsession and anger. He stayed quiet, not because he didn’t have a bunch of questions to ask, but because he wasn’t sure Meg wouldn’t tell him they were none of his business and storm out leaving him alone and awkward with the rain and the photographs.

“I told Ruby my brother was too stupid for her,” Meg commented, after a long pause. “I mean he wasn’t stupid with money and shit like that. No, he was brilliant, he could cut the best deals with sponsors and sellers and all those things. But I knew it was only a matter of time until he fucked it up, and lo and behold, I was right.”

“What happened?” he asked, stupidly.

“You don’t know? I thought it was vox populi Tom knocked up a girl in the town,” Meg replied. The bitterness in her voice was so harsh Castiel couldn’t even imagine the things she’d say to her brother to his face. “Just the latest in the long list of sins the Masters kids had committed in their lifetime.”

“Yes, I… I heard about that,” Castiel muttered. “I… actually met her, before I knew any of it. Uh… she had a baby girl.”

“And now I know more about her than her own father does.” Meg lifted her cup of coffee like she was proposing a toast. “Funny how those things work.”

She obviously didn’t think there was anything remotely funny about it. He looked at the pictures again.

“What happened to the goat?” he asked, and instantly he wished he hadn’t.

“Ruby took it when she left,” Meg explained with a groan. “She also took half of Tom’s money, which was also, incidentally, _my_ money. And here I was, thinking we were best friends. And then Tom took some of _that_ money and he… left for the city to do whatever the hell it is that he’s doing over there. Oh, yeah, last year was a bad one, and if I have another of those, I can count myself lucky if I manage to keep a roof over my head.”

The bitterness and the anger had abandoned her. Now she only looked infinitely sad. She left the cup on the coffee table and hid her eyes on her hands.

“You might think I’m a hardass and a bitch,” she said. Her voice sounded at the edge of breaking down. “But I only do it because the ranch and the horses are all I have left.”

It wasn’t an apology or an explanation for the irrational way she acted sometimes. But Castiel decided to accept it. He stood up and moved to sit on the couch next to her.

“Claire is all I have left,” he commented. “After my brother and his wife passed, she… she’s the only family I have now. And the thought that something might happen to her, that she doesn’t get to be everything I know she can be, terrifies me. So I do understand what it’s like to put everything you have in a single… a single…”

He didn’t know how to finish that phrase. Meg slowly looked up at him. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were swollen and red.

“Cause?” she suggested.

“Yes,” Castiel accepted. “That’s a good word for it.”

Meg grabbed a paper napkin from the tray and blew her nose noisily.

“I want to hold onto my house and you want your girl to grow up fine,” she summarized. “They don’t seem like great causes, huh?”

“Maybe not. But maybe it’s best to just have a little horizon to focus on.”

Meg didn’t say a word, but she breathed in deeply, and when she exhaled, it was almost like her entire body relaxed as once.

“I don’t know what is it about storms,” she commented, as if to justify a moment of weakness. “They turn me into a sentimental fool. Ignore everything I said, please.”

Castiel wished he could. But now that he had seen Meg without her mask, now that he’d seen how lonely she was after her friends and family had abandoned her like that… well, it was hard to put her back into the box of this angry, unstoppable sadist he’d seen her as one.

“What does snow do?” he asked. Meg blinked at him. “If the rain makes you sentimental, what does snow do?”

For the first time in the day since they had been working with _Morningstar_ , Meg cracked a little smile.

“Snow is fine,” she said. “I like snow.”

“Good to know.”

They went quiet again, watching the flames dancing in the fireplace for a while. Castiel discreetly looked away when Meg wiped her eyes once more.

“Would you like another cup of coffee?” she asked. She stood up and grabbed the tray before he even answered her.

“No, that’s not… it’s not necessary. You don’t have to make Andrea come down, it’s okay.”

“Who said anything about that?” Meg asked, shooting him a glare, and that was much more like her. “I happen to be perfectly able to handle my own coffee maker.”

“I will believe that when I see it,” Castiel said, standing up as well. He had the feeling for some reason he was allowed to joke with her now, so he tried it: “Word in town is you are a complete brat that always orders people around.”

“That is true, I am an absolute brat,” Meg replied as he followed her into the kitchen. “Which is why I am completely convinced that I’m the only one who can make decent coffee.”

“I’ll tell Andrea you said that.”

“Go ahead,” she snorted. “I have told her as much myself.”

She looked much more beautiful when she laughed. Of course, had he said anything of the sort, she probably would have thrown the coffee jar at him, but he continued to think it as they sat on the couch again and talked about horses.

 

* * *

 

The track was muddy and unusable for several days, but they were lucky enough that the sun finally dried it enough that they could start working with _Morningstar_ again. August was coming to a quick end, and with every day that passed, Meg’s patience grew shorter and her temperament more volatile. However, Castiel noticed she didn’t focus it on him as much. Instead, all her anger seemed to be directed at the always indifferent _Morningstar_.

“Look, you absolute nightmare,” she told him that day while she tried to convince him to get into the stall. "I have bet my bottom penny on you, and I swear you're going to win me some races whether I have to drag you to the finish line myself, do you hear me?"

"How's that approach working out for her?" Claire asked. She had come out of the house to walk her dog around and she'd stopped by the track to watch Meg berating the horse. Apparently, that deserved her full attention, because she picked up the now overgrown puppy and was observing the whole thing with a mocking grin in her lips.

"I'll let you know in a minute," Castiel said.

For now it seemed to be working. Slowly, huffing and still looking like he was too good for it, _Morningstar_ got inside the stall. He shook his head, still clearly uncomfortable, but at leas het didn't try to throw Meg off his back.

"Are you ready?" Castiel asked, as Benny positioned himself to open the gate.

"Let's do this," Meg replied, leaning over _Morningstar_ 's neck with pure resolution shining in her eyes.

Castiel lifted the gun over his head, mentally counted to three... and pulled the trigger.

 _Morningstar_ bolted out so fast he almost didn't have time to start the watch. _Bilbo_ barked and wrestled in Claire's arms, startled by the shot, while Benny backed down and peeked over Castiel's shoulders.

"She's going fast today..."

That was an understatement. _Morningstar_ had become once more a black blur in the distance and Castiel’s heart was pounding in his chest as he watched them go.

"Come on," he muttered under his breath, his eyes going from the track to the watch. "Come on, you can do it..."

The colt passed by their side like a breeze. Castiel blinked at his chronometer, baffled, as Benny whistled. Several meters ahead, Meg slowed down Morningstar’s pace and tuned him around.

“How was it?” she asked, the anxiety in her voice growing stronger.

“Forty three seconds,” Castiel informed. Meg was left staring at him just as stunned.

“What’s that mean?” Claire asked, looking at one and then at the other. “Is that a good thing?”

“No, kid,” Meg said, as a wicked grin bloomed on her face. “That is an excellent thing.”


	10. The Start of the Road

As the summer came to an end, Claire was almost thankful for the chance of escaping the ranch. Castiel and Meg’s anxiousness about the upcoming races grew so bad that after weeks of that weird truce that had been going on between the two, they started arguing again.

“It’s a twelve hours drive!”

“Well, what are we supposed to do? Hide in the FedEx truck next to the horse and hope they won’t notice us there?”

“I don’t know what _you_ are going to do, but I’m not going!”

“Of course you’re going, don’t be ridiculous!” Meg argued. “I need my trainer on sight!”

“And I need to be here when Claire starts going to school!”

Claire looked up from the floor of the stable she was scrubbing.

“I have my own car,” she reminded him.

“I’m not leaving you alone in the cabin for three days,” Castiel argued, and turned his attention back to Meg. “Why do we even need to go to Kentucky? There are plenty of races we can run a lot closer!”

“It’s the start of the road,” Meg replied. “We always run it. It’s a tradition.”

“A costly tradition,” Castiel pointed out. “Between the fee and the transport and our own travel…”

“It’s already paid for,” Meg said. “ _Morningstar_ is running Iroquois.”

She walked out of the stables before Castiel could answer, and Claire took note of that as a good method to get the last word in.

One Internet search later, she found out “Iroquois” was the first race of the Road to the Kentucky Derby prep season.

“The fastest horse to ever run it did it at one minute, thirty five seconds,” she informed Castiel as he cooked dinner. Since he and Meg had discussed earlier, he had turned down Andrea’s invitation to have dinner in the main house, and honestly, it was a bit irritating that them having a decent meal depended exclusively of him getting along with their boss. “ _Morningstar_ ’s fastest run of the same distance is one minute, forty one. I guess that means he has a chance of winning, huh?”

“Are you planning on betting on him or something?” Castiel asked as he poured down the mashed potatoes on the plates.

“Can I do that? I could use the extra cash.”

He didn’t laugh at her joke. He placed the plate in front of her and sat down with a somber face. Claire closed her laptop and pushed it aside even before he asked her to.

“Okay, what is the problem?” she asked. “Because there’s a problem. You looked far too serious for it not to be a problem.”

Defying all her expectations that he was going to go into denial mode, Castiel sighed and confessed.

"It's too soon. I thought we would have a couple more weeks to work with him, maybe even an entire month before we tried to run a race with him. I just don't think he's ready."

"But Meg does believe it," Claire pointed out. "And literally, she's the one who's risking her neck here."

She had seen the hell horse on the track. She couldn't even imagine how painful it would be like to fall and fly across the track at that speed.

"That's not the point," Castiel said. "It's an unnecessarily long trip that will stress him, and he gets aggressive when he's stressed. Even if he was ready to run, it could affect his performance."

"Not to mention I'm not sure you and Meg can survive twelve hours in the same car with each other."

Either Claire was really bombing at her jokes that night or Castiel was in a worse mood than she thought. She figured it was best to leave the sexual tension one for another day.

"You know she's going to do whatever she wants, right?" she asked. "Like, that's all she's been doing since we got here. It's kind of her thing."

"I know that," Castiel replied, sinking his fork into the potatoes, only to mash them even further. "And I know she will be mad for not going with her and help her calm _Morningstar_ , but my point still stands. I don't want to leave you alone here in the cabin for so long."

"Why not? I can make my own dinner."

"I once caught you eating cheese balls for breakfast."

Claire wished she could deny that, but instead she decided to own up to her past mistakes and suggest another solution.

"I could stay with Benny and Andrea at the house. They have a guest room, don't they?"

"I'm not entirely sure how that is a better option."

"Well, at least you know Andrea isn't going to let me have any cheese balls for breakfast."

Castiel pensively put the fork in his mouth, like he was seriously considering it.

"No," he said in the end. "I don't know how, but I'm pretty certain you're going to manipulate Benny into letting you do things you're not supposed to. Either that or he will be so busy with things in the ranch he won't notice you stayed in bed reading instead of going to school."

Claire huffed, offended at the notion that she would even dare, but Castiel wasn’t budging. So Claire decided to throw in her last Hail Mary, the thing she wanted to suggest at the beginning, but wasn't sure she could get away with it. She swallowed some water to clear her mouth.

"I... could stay a couple of days with Alexis."

Castiel slowly turned his head at her.

"That's actually a great idea."

"Come on, she's my friend and I'm sure she won't mind, it's not like we're going to..." All the arguments Claire had carefully prepared to convince his uncle crashed and burned inside of his brain once she realized what he had just said. "Wait… really?"

"Of course," he said. "Alexis seems like a responsible girl, you enjoy spending time with her. And her mom will have no qualms about ratting you out to me if you misbehave. If you dare to misbehave under the sheriff's nose, that is."

"Don't challenge me." Claire squinted her eyes at him, pretty sure there was some sort of catch she wasn't seeing. "Are you sure? Like, absolutely sure?"

Castiel tapped his fingers on the table, as if he was asking himself the exact same question.

“She’s not just going to let this one go,” he sighed in the end. Claire didn’t have to ask who he meant.

She tried some of the mashed potatoes, winced and pushed part of her food to the floor while Castiel was distracted. _Bilbo_ was more than grateful for it.

 

* * *

 

Claire insisted that Castiel didn’t have to go with her the first day of school, but once she’d arrived there she kind of wish he had. She wouldn’t have admitted it under torture, mind you, but she was a little bit nervous. At least this wasn’t like that time her parents had died and she’d have to move with her uncle and all the other kids at school looked at her weird because she was the girl with no parents. She had no idea where the rumor had started or who had spread it, but in the end, it didn’t matter. She had forged herself a reputation for always doing her homework right and being willing to lend it, she had joined a couple of clubs and suddenly she hadn’t been an outcast anymore. New kids came, so they forgot about her novelty and she became just one more of the crowd.

She didn’t think she was going to be so lucky here. She parked the Maverick in the already pretty stuffed school lot and looked at herself in the mirror. She had chosen not to wear as much make up as she used to, but she had put on her leather jacket and her ripped jeans. They were a little tight since she had gained weight for doing very little exercise over the summer, but they still fit her. Castiel had grimaced upon seeing her, but he hadn’t commented on it as he wished her a good day at school. He probably figured she was going to prove herself to be a defiant student that the teachers wouldn’t like to mess with, but it wasn’t the teachers Claire was looking to intimidate.

She took a deep breath, slung her backpack over her shoulder and stepped outside.

And at that point, she wasn’t looking for trouble, really, but trouble just seemed to find her anyway.

She practically had to jump out of the way of a black shiny Mercedes Benz that passed like a thunderbolt dangerously close from where she was about to walk. In a town of second hand cars and a very small economy, Claire had to wonder who had enough money to drive a car like that. But that thought came to her after she had already punched the car’s booth and shouted at the driver:

“Hey! Watch out!”

The boy that was driving opened the door and leaned against it. He had sandy curly hair and a very marked jawline and in summary, he was very handsome. The problem with that was the he clearly knew he was handsome.

“Hey, you,” he said in a come-hither voice. “Don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

Claire automatically classified him as a douche to avoid at all costs.

“Well, obviously.” She rolled her eyes. “If you’d seen me, you wouldn’t have almost run me over.”

She stepped aside to surround the car, but Douchebag wasn’t giving up so easily.

“Come on, now,” he called her and closed the door, leaving the car parked right where it would make it all the more difficult for everyone looking to park to come in. “I’m just trying to be friendly. You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“I’m just waiting for you to leave me alone. You’re a little slow, aren’t you?”

Douchebag didn’t register the insult, laughing it off instead.

“I’m Henry,” he introduced himself, as if Claire cared. “What’s your name, Feisty Girl?”

Claire hesitated between ignoring him and asking him what was the success rate of him calling someone “feisty” was, but luckily, she didn’t have to engage any further with him.

“Claire!”

Alexis and Ben strode down the parking lot towards him and Claire had never been so relieved to see someone.

“Hi, guys,” she said.

Alexis smiled at her until she noticed who she was talking to. Her expression immediately went sour.

“Oh… hello, Henry,” she muttered.

And it dawned on Claire that this must have been Henry the Ex that Alexis had mentioned a couple of times. She hadn’t told her the whole story and Claire had assumed it was a bit of a touchy subject. Seeing the look on Alexis’ face now, Claire sure was ever so glad she hadn’t pressured her on the topic.

Henry didn’t stop smiling.

“Annie, cute as ever,” he commented.

“Henry, douchy as ever,” Ben replied, also smiling.

“I see you’re still white-knighting, Braeden,” Henry continued. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Pretty well, actually.” Ben shrugged. “You do know women are people, right? You wouldn’t get dumped so much if you tried to adopt that as a life philosophy.”

Claire suppressed the urge to high five him. Instead, she lassoed her arm around Alexis’ and the other around Ben’s.

“Well, I would say it’s been a pleasure, but I’d be lying,” she commented. “Guys, why don’t you show me to the Principal’s office? Bye, Henry!”

They dragged Alexis away before Henry said something actually hurtful to her. Claire didn’t turn around to see him, but she could feel his eyes on the back of her head.

“Why were you talking to that guy?” Ben asked, scrunching up his nose like Henry was something that smelled really bad. It made his glasses almost hit his forehead.

“It was more like he was talking at me,” Claire explained. “I can’t believe you used to date that.”

Alexis seemed to have recovered herself now that they weren’t in the present of Henry. She sighed deeply and straightened her shoulders.

“What can I say? I was young and stupid.”

“You broke with him four months ago,” Ben pointed out.

“I was young and stupid four months ago.”

Claire chuckled and wondered why she’d ever been apprehensive about befriending them.

The school building was… it looked like it had been demolished and hastily built again over a very unstable groundwork. At least that’s the sensation Claire got when they walked in: that the floor was a little inclined to the left. The yellowing walls (which she would have bet used to be white ages ago) had distinctive marks of humidity.

“My mom says they had been trying to put together enough money to paint the entire school again,” Alexis commented, when she noticed Claire looking. “They never come up with it.”

The students moved in groups of two or three and she noticed several curious glances in her direction, even though she was flanked by Alexis and Ben. Claire had thought that would be enough for them to accept she was part of the school’s landscape now.

“Why is everybody staring at me?” she asked in an uncomfortable whisper.

“Well, you live at Morningstar,” Ben said. “That alone is enough to make you interesting.”

“How do they even know that?”

They both went quiet for a moment until Claire turned her head to one and then to the other.

“It’s a small town…”

“Rumors travel fasts…”

“We might have told a couple of people we knew you,” Ben confessed.

“And we might have mentioned how cool you were and the fact you’re from New York City,” Alexis said, fidgeting with the straps of her backpack and avoiding her eye.

“I’m from Illinois,” Claire corrected her.

“But you used to live in New York City, didn’t you?”

Claire didn’t bother to explain that the reason she moved to New York City had been because of her parent’s deaths. She figured something that bleak would greatly diminish whatever mystique Ben and Alexis had assigned her.

“I’ll just… get my locker number and my schedule,” she said, pointing at the office’s door.

“Great. We’ll wait for you here.”

Claire guessed she couldn’t blame them. Northeast Haven First High School seemed like the kind of town where new students rarely showed up. Principal Sands (a redheaded woman with scary long nails) showed her a smile that was all teeth when Claire introduced herself.

“Welcome, Miss Novak. I hope you have a great academic year.”

“Thanks, I’ll try.”

Principal Sands handed her the papers she needed, but she held on to them even when Claire grabbed them.

“I heard you live at the Morningstar Ranch,” she commented, still smiling despite the fact this was far too weird.

"Uh… yes, my uncle works there," Castiel muttered, completely unsure as to why would that matter to the principal.

"I see," Principal Sands said, still not letting go of Claire's papers. "Tell, me how are the Masters? I don't think I've seen Meg and Tom, especially, in a while."

"I… haven't even met Mr. Masters," Claire said, really hoping now the principal would stop smiling at her like she was going to eat her. "Miss Masters is at the ranch a lot and she pays me to do some chores around, but..."

"Oh," the principal said. She sounded almost disappointed as she finally released Claire's papers. "Well, go to your classes then. You don't want to be late on your first day."

Claire left the office with her neck aching from the whiplash and hoping she had taken Castiel's offer to come with her. She was pretty sure the principal would've been as weird, but at least she would've had a witness with her to confirm that it had all been excessively disturbing.

Luckily for her, Alexis and Ben did believe her.

"Yeah, Abaddon is like that," Ben said as they walked to the classrooms. Alexis had a different class, but it was all in the same direction as theirs.

"Abaddon?"

"We call her that. Not to her face," Alexis explained. "I think I know why she was being so weird…"

The bell rang at that moment and Claire had to wait until lunch to find out. In retrospective, that was for the best, because if Alexis had told her right before all the teachers started calling her out to introduce herself to the class, she would have said something completely inappropriate, like:

_"Mrs. Sands, the principal, had an affair with Tom Masters, owner of the Morningstar Ranch where my uncle works!"_

Not only would that have been embarrassing, it would have got her in trouble too.

Instead, she said some bland things, like:

"I'm Claire Novak. I used to live in New York, but I moved here over the summer. I like books and movies. I have a dog."

She had to repeat it at least three times before lunch. She was painfully aware of all the eyes shooting in her direction, and sometimes the excited murmurs of people as they confirmed there actually was a new student and that she was actually from New York. None of them approached to talk to her, thankfully, and by lunch, she could let out a genuine laugh when Alexis related the tidbit of gossip about the principal and Tom Masters.

"You're kidding!"

"Nope. My mom says he got around a lot," Alexis told her while they put mashed potatoes on their trays. "That's why no one was surprised when his wife ended up leaving him."

"How did she know?"

"Small town. It's hard to keep secrets like that."

"Guys, over here!"

Ben had saved them a seat by the window. When he found out what they had been talking about, he scoffed and shook his head.

"That's old news," he said. "My mom knows Nora, the girl who had Tom's baby, you know? She came to my mom to practice breathing exercises while she was pregnant. Anyway, now she's thinking about suing him to get child support."

"Well, he should pay child support," Alexis said, rolling her eyes. "The baby's his and he's loaded. He and his sister; they are both loaded."

Claire should have probably disavowed that notion, tell them that Meg had troubles paying the veterinary, but when she was opening her mouth to do it… she realized she couldn't. Meg was a bitch, that was true, but she wasn't evil or anything like that. She didn't deserve to be ridiculed in front of the town by them finding out she was at the edge of bankruptcy and in desperate need of some wins for her hell horse.

"Yeah, well. Maybe that's why he doesn't show up a lot, right?" she suggested instead.

Alexis and Ben nodded like that was the most logical explanation to everything and luckily for Claire, the topic changed when a brunette girl with a mole in her cheek approached their table.

"Hey, guys, mind if I sit? Everything's else full."

"Not at all. Claire, this is Krissy."

Krissy smiled at her and briefly shook her hand over the trays of food. She made no comment about Claire coming from New York or living in the Morningstar Ranch, and instead, launched on a rant about how she couldn't convince her dad to let he throw a Halloween party next month.

"I'm like _'Dad, it's just going to be a couple of friends and me. You don't have to worry about it, 'cause you're not even going to be here'_. He's like _'Well, that's exactly what worries me'_. What does he think I'm going to do, burn the house down?"

She and Ben eloquently looked at Alexis and started snickering.

"That was one time!" Alexis complained. "I didn't know they had fireworks and afterwards Jody didn't let me out of the house for a month."

"Yeah, that was epic," Ben laughed. "Josephine's farewell party came close, though."

"How's she doing, by the way?"

"She sent me a snap today," Krissy said, taking out her cellphone to show them. It was a picture of a black girl with curly hair standing on the roof of a building with the city's skyline at her back and the message: _'On top of the freaking world'_. "She says she's doing awesome. She's going to go to all the Broadway shows ever, I'm so jealous."

"Did you go to Broadway a lot, Claire?" Alexis asked.

Claire didn't know why she did that. Perhaps because she hadn't participated on the conversation for the last five minutes, but that was perfectly okay with her. Still, she tried to smile and give them an answer that wasn't too lame:

"Not that often," she explained. "You know, me and my uncle… we're not people who go out a lot."

"Well, then how are you going to make friends around here?" Krissy asked, crooking an eyebrow at her.

"Uhm…" Claire muttered, awkwardly.

"Oh, you could totally throw a party at the ranch," Ben suggested. Suddenly, his eyes had a sort of demonic glimmer behind his glasses. "That place is huge; I bet it'd be the most awesome party ever."

"Yeah, I don't think that'd be possible," Claire said, scratching the back of her head. "Meg… I mean, Miss Masters, she is… she likes to keep to herself. And you know, I only just live in the little cabin at the side, with my uncle… not really party material."

Ben's enthusiasm visibly deflated, but Krissy and Alexis merely shrug.

"Like the Masters are going to let us the plebe come into their house anyway," Alexis commented.

"My dad says it wasn't always like that," Krissy commented. "He said the old Masters, the grandpa, used to throw parties for the whole the town for New Year and then his son continued the tradition. He even remembers going to one when he was little."

"Why they'd stopped?" Claire asked. Krissy shrugged in a very clear _'Fuck if I know'_ gesture.

"Well, your Halloween party is going to be even better," Alexis said, though she was probably exaggerating for the sake of the argument. "And even if your dad doesn't let you, we can all go together to the cliffs."

"What's that?"

"It's this place right outside of town. People go there to listen to music and hang out," Ben explained. "Hey, maybe we should go this weekend."

"That sounds awesome," Alexis nodded. "Are you going, Claire?"

Claire hesitated. On the one hand, the whole point of Castiel leaving her with Jody and Alexis was so she wouldn't get in trouble. On the other hand, Alexis was going, so Jody would know they were going, so technically, they wouldn't be getting in trouble, right?

She noticed her friend's clear blue eyes on her and she smiled:

"I wouldn't miss it."

 

* * *

 

"If you need anything at all, you only need to call me."

"What difference would that make? You'll be twelve hours away..."

"I'll catch a plane," Castiel said. The last thing he needed right then was Claire pointing out all the ways in which the weekend could go wrong. He was already pretty damned anxious about it.

Claire seemed to realize that, because she shut her mouth and just let him keep giving her recommendation after recommendation.

"Please, don't eat too much junk food. I'm worried about your health. And make sure _Bilbo_ doesn't eat Jody's plants. And..."

"Okay," Jody intervened, putting a hand on Claire's shoulder and pulling her back a little. "I think she got it. She's going to be fine. Don't worry about anything."

She was such a calm woman that Castiel could have almost believed her. But this was the first time in a long time that he was going to leave Claire alone, and for an entire weekend too. Well, she wasn't going to be alone, and that assuaged his guilt and anxiety a little bit.

"Do you have your weapon at home?" he asked the sheriff.

"Yeah, but nowhere the kids can find it if that's what you're worried about," Jody replied.

That wasn't what Castiel was worried about, but it calmed him down nonetheless.

"Well, okay," he muttered. He still made no attempt to move from the spot in the pavement where he was standing.

"Don't worry about anything, Mr. Novak," Alexis said, smiling wide at him. "I'm very glad you let Claire stay here."

She was such a polite young lady. It actually made him wonder exactly why Claire liked her. He had half-expected her to make friends with the troublemakers as soon as the school started.

"Yeah, Uncle Cas. We'll be just fine," Claire added. "I think your boss wants you to move already."

A honk from the car parked behind him reinforced that impression. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw Meg beckoning him to hurry up with a rather irritated expression.

"Okay," Castiel said. He took a deep breath and stepped backwards. "Have a good weekend."

"You too," Claire replied, picking up her duffle bag from where she left it at the floor. "I hope you win."

Meg honked again and Castiel thought they better, because otherwise the drive back was going to be incredibly awkward.

Finally he dared to turn around and climb back on the car. Meg told him something, but Castiel ignored her as he watched Claire walking into the house, her duffle bag hitting against her thigh and her dog running around her heels. She turned around, waved at him one last time and then closed the door behind her.

"Why are you so worried?" Meg asked, rolling her eyes. "Aren't you leaving her with the sheriff precisely so you have nothing to worry about?"

Castiel turned the ignition on without answer her question. Of course she wasn't going to understand it. She wasn't a mother. Well, he wasn't Claire's father either, but she was his family.

"Well, Kentucky, here we go," Meg laughed when he finally headed for the road. "This should be fun."

Castiel was pretty certain by now they had an entirely different definition of 'fun', but he didn't comment on it.

"Are you going to be this boring the entire trip?" she asked with a huff.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he replied. He sounded a little more aggressive than he had intended, but that didn't seem to bother Meg.

"Well, I don't know, tell me about you. By now, I'm sure you know tons of things about me."

"Why would I?"

"'Cause you go out every Friday with Benny and Dean to have dinner," she pointed out.

"Am I not allowed to have a social life?" Castiel asked, but he shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, like a kid that had been caught in the middle of a mischief. It was absolutely ridiculous. He shouldn't feel guilty for socializing and talking to people, even if Meg was completely incapable of doing the same thing.

"I didn't say that. Still, I'm sure they confided you with the juiciest gossips about me and my brother," she added. She almost sounded amused, but there was an underlying current of irritation in her voice she couldn't quite hide.

"That's not the same as knowing you," he replied. "I know you because we've been working together for almost four months. Not because anything people say about you."

"That is not the same thing," Meg insisted. "You know how I work, you know what I want from my horses and my employees. You know why I am the way I am," she said, surprising Castiel. That was the first time she alluded to the things she had confessed during the storm, if indirectly. "I know how you are and how you work, but I don't know that many things about you, really."

Castiel remained silent for a second as they reached the highway. It was still early in the morning and it was quite empty, so they could speed up a little and that was exactly what he did. He didn't like going all that fast, though. Jimmy and Amelia's fate was still fresh in his mind despite it had been almost three years ago.

"What would you like to know?"

Meg took her time to ask her first question, as if now that she could give free reign to her curiosity, she wasn't about to throw away this opportunity by asking stupid or trivial things.

"Well, first of all, how did you ended up being a horse shrink?"

"I told you, I trained the horses so they would be calm around people. My partner did the therapeutic part," he explained. "She was very good at it, too. We had children with special needs, vets trying to overcome their PTSD, all sorts of people that came to us for help. I like to think we did some good in the world with our work."

"And your work with me doesn't do any good in the world?" Meg asked. He didn't need to look at her to know she was arching an eyebrow.

"I'll have to get back to you on that," he said.

"Fair enough," she accepted. "But that doesn't answer my question: why did you end working with horses? I know why I did; I grew up around them."

"Me too. In a way." He tightened his hands around the wheel, but Meg had already shared some pretty painful stuff for her. It was only fair he did the same thing: "My father left us when I was five. He... you know, when I was young, I would justify it saying he was a bit of a nomad, a bohemian, that he couldn't be tied down to a wife and two children. Growing up, I realized he was just a failed writer and a deadbeat with alcohol issues."

"Okay, so, that went dark fast."

"You asked," Castiel pointed out. Meg conceded he was right with a nod and he continued: "Anyway, it messed me up a little. Mom was... she was very depressed. She barely left her bed, she didn't cook for us anymore or clean the house. So my older brother Jimmy took it upon himself to take care of me, to the best of his abilities. He was only eight at the time, but he made sure I was bathed and clothed; he bought instant food so we'd have something to eat. He noticed I was struggling with spelling and letters, and that I didn't have any friends at school, so he walked me there and picked me up; he helped me with my homework. He was... I think he was the reason we survived that difficult time of our lives."

"So that's why you're so overprotective of the kid."

Castiel gritted his teeth a little. She was partially right, but there was more to that story than Meg imagined. However, he felt it wasn't his place to tell it.

"Still don't see how horses come into the picture."

"Well, one day, a fair came to town. Mom was feeling a little better, or I think she was, because she was up. Jimmy kept nagging at her that we should go, that it would be fun; that we haven't been out of the house in ages. Mom said that we couldn't afford it; Jimmy said he'd pay it out of his piggy bank. She said the car didn't have any gas; Jimmy said we could take the bus. He had thought about everything, and I was just so excited to go... in the end, Mom just couldn't say no. So we went, and outside there was a mini-rodeo of sorts, where they had horses that the public could pet and such. And I don't know why, but I was just hell-bent on riding one. The trainer was this old guy with a big white moustache and a cowboy hat, and he let us both take a ride even though we only had money for one of us. It was just a small act of kindness, but it made all the difference in the world: we mounted and he walked us around the padlock. We laughed and waved at Mom and… she smiled. It was the first time I saw her smile since Dad left us."

He went quiet for a few seconds and Meg turned her head and pretended not to notice him wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He appreciated that a lot.

"Things got better after that day," Castiel continued. "Mom got back on her feet. She got a job and the house stopped being so silent and horrible. I decided I loved animals a lot and my original plan was to become a veterinary, but... turns out I don't handle myself all that well in the presence of blood."

Meg let out a soft scoff and looked away, but at least she resisted the urge to laugh in his face.

“That’s a horribly depressing story,” she commented.

“Is it?” Castiel shrugged. “It has a happy ending.”

“What part of being stuck on a car with your boss for twelve hours is happy?” Meg asked.

“Well, since you’ve probed me for questions, I guess the happy part is that I get to do the same.”

“Nope.” Meg grabbed her sunhat from the backseat and put it in her head, covering her face. “I think I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up when it’s my turn to drive.”

“That’s not fair. Meg,” Castiel called her out, but Meg was turning her back on him. “Meg!”

That day he found out another thing about Meg: she had an uncanny knack for ignoring things she couldn’t care less about.


	11. Small Victories

They fought the rest of the way, for nothing in particular: Meg turned the radio on while he was trying to sleep and protested that it was the only way to keep awake, since he refused to tell her more of his “damn sad stories”. They argued whether they should stop at a Biggerson’s for lunch or take the food with them and eat in the car. Meg wanted to keep driving, but Castiel refused: they had to at least take a bathroom break and stretch their legs. Meg threatened to keep going without him. Castiel shrugged, wished her luck on the race and said he’d catch a bus back to Northeast Haven before sauntering inside the restaurant. After three minutes, Meg followed him and ordered a salad. She ate it all, but she refused to even look at Castiel, even when he teasingly pointed out that the kid on the table next to them were being less of a brat than her.

Her foul mood didn’t dissipate until they crossed the Kentucky state line. She called the company that transported _Morningstar_ and was pleased to find that he had been safely delivered to the stables where he would rest until the next morning.

“It’s a long, stressful trip for a horse,” Castiel complained. “One night of resting won’t do much for him. You should have sent him ahead with at least a couple of days of…”

“If you’re so worried about it, why don’t we go see him, huh?”

She wanted to go see him, but after spending the entire afternoon sulking at him, she wasn’t going to ask him. They arrived late and they had to bribe and beg and prove with pictures they were horse owners and not there to sabotage some of the others, but the security guard at the door finally let them come in.

“You’ve got fifteen minutes, and then we’re closing,” he threatened, throwing them a glare.

“Thank you,” Castiel said, because Meg was already stalking inside without even looking at him again.

They found _Morningstar_ quite easily: he was the only horse who kept huffing and neighing inside of his box. Despite the guards warning that they didn’t have much time, Meg opened the door and walked to pat his head. The colt tried to look away, like he knew Meg was the reason he had just spent an entire day inside a truck, but she completely disregarded his bad mood as he checked him all over, with a sort of paranoia Castiel could only attribute to repressed nerves.

“He seems okay,” she concluded in the end. “Do you really think he’ll be too tired?”

“Perhaps, but he runs mostly on stubbornness and anger,” he said. He didn’t know if he was talking about the colt or about his jockey. “He should be fine.”

“Excuse me,” the guard called them from the stable door. “I really need you to leave.”

“Yes, we’re going now,” Castiel said. He physically had to grab Meg by the shoulders and push her out of the stables while reminded her she also needed a good night of sleep. “If you fall off the horse and you’re trampled to death, all of this would have been for nothing.”

“Ugh, at least I’d get to experience the sweet relief of death,” Meg said. She looked at the guard that escorted them to the door and asked point blank: “Who you’re betting for?”

“I don’t bet, my wife doesn’t like it,” the man replied.

“Yeah, okay.” Meg rolled her eyes like she had heard that excuse millions of times before and she didn’t believe it them either. “So which one you’re betting for?”

The man hesitated, but he finally confessed:

“I liked that big black one of yours when I first saw it, not gonna lie. But then I found out you come from that cursed ranch up in Connecticut, so I don’t know.”

Meg’s fist clenched and her mouth became a very tight straight line. Castiel understood she was about to throw a punch at the guy, so he grabbed her arm and gently try to coax her away from the confrontation.

“It’s not even worth it, Meg.”

“My ranch isn’t cursed!” she complained. “I just have an idiot for a brother.”

“Of course, of course,” he said patiently as they adjusted their seatbelts. “Do you want to go for dinner or…?”

“I can’t even eat,” she groaned. “Let’s just go to the hotel.”

“You know not eating for one night isn’t going to affect your overall weight enough for it to make a difference, right?”

Meg glared at him so intensely Castiel was certain she was going to rip his head off with her bare hands.

“Hotel it is,” he muttered as he started the engine.

That didn’t do much to improve Meg’s humor: it turned out it had been a mixed up with their reservations and instead of getting a room with two single beds, they got one with only one queen bed.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Meg asked, while Castiel looked around to see if there were any heavy objects she could throw at the receptionist. To put them out of her reach, of course. “I’ve stayed in this hotel hundreds of times and we’ve never had a problem before.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Masters, but that seems to be exactly why this happen,” the girl explained. She clearly had no regards for her personal safety or she had dealt with enough angry clients in her life that they didn’t even faze her anymore. “Whenever you’ve stayed with us, you booked a room with a single bed and a room with a queen size bed for two guests. So the computer apparently generated that booking automatically and the person taking your reservation didn’t double check.”

Meg’s face was red with anger, so Castiel felt like it was time to step in.

“Excuse us for a second,” he said, before dragging Meg away from the counter. “Meg, we’re going to have to take it.”

“There’s no way we’re taking it!” Meg said, loud enough for the receptionist to hear them.

“Well, what other options do we have?” he asked. “This hotel is booked and probably all hotels around are also booked by people who came to see the race. We’re going to spend the entire night looking for a room, and we’re going to end in a seedy motel outside of town. We’ll be late tomorrow, and you would’ve slept so little that you _will_ fall off the horse, and you _will_ be trampled to death.”

Meg lifted her eyes at him, irritated. “Why are you telling me all the things that could go wrong? That’s my job.”

“And my job is to make sure both you and Morningstar give the best possible performance tomorrow,” Castiel replied. “Look, I’ll sleep on the floor, okay? We just… it’s just for a night.”

“It’s actually two nights; the race is tomorrow and then leave on Sunday,” she reminded him.

“And then you would have no problem sleeping on the floor, because you won’t have a career to run,” he said, trying to joke. Meg didn’t laugh. “Meg, please, just make this easier for once.”

“Ugh, fine,” she huffed. “But I’m complaining all the way back home.”

“I didn’t expect any different.”

Now, standing down at the hotel’s lobby, Castiel’s solution made all the sense in the world. It wasn’t until they were actually standing in the room (a very nice room, on the other hand), that he realized just how uncomfortable the two following days were going to be. Even worse than that one had been.

“I’m going to get ready for bed,” Meg declared, grabbing her travel kit and her duffle bag. “I suggest you do the same and you better be done by the time I come out. I have no interest in watching you change.”

“Right back at you,” he said, but he wasn’t sure the extent of his sarcasm really reached her. In any case, he did put on his pajama pants and old shirt before he sat on the bed to call Claire.

To his surprise, she did sound happy to hear him.

“Hey, how was the trip?” she asked.

“Long. Tiresome,” Castiel replied. He didn’t want to talk about it or how impossible Meg was being right then. “What about you, how was your day?”

“It was fun. After school, Alexis, Ben and I went to this place they call the cliffs… they’re not actual cliffs, though, they’re more like a sort of a woody area outside of town near the creak and there are this big rocks that look like cliffs…”

“Isn’t that a little dangerous?” Castiel asked frowning. He could think of nothing scarier than unsupervised teenagers spending time in a desolated area.

“Everybody in town knows where they are,” Claire replied, but her sarcasm wasn’t as bitter when she was happy and it showed. “Anyway, we listened to music in our cars and _Bilbo_ chased some rabbits…”

The bathroom door creaked open. Castiel lost a little track of what Claire was telling him. Meg stepped in very short pajama shorts and a sleeveless shirt that hanged very low, almost revealing the top of her breast. He looked away immediately and Meg walked past him without even acknowledging his presence before moving the covers aside and getting into bed. But it still took him a few seconds to come back to the conversation with his niece.

“… so now we’re making pizzas with Jody and we’re going to watch _Evil Dead_. Can you believe Alexis’ never seen it?” Claire told him. “Anyway, how’s Louisville?”

“Well, I didn’t get to see much. Maybe tomorrow, after the race…”

“Right. You’ve got that thing with the hell horse,” Claire chuckled. “Well, tell Meg I wish you luck.”

“Will do. Enjoy your movie.”

He expected Meg to be asleep (or at the very least, pretending to be asleep) when he ended the call, but she surprised him again:

“How’s the kid?”

“She seems to be doing fine,” Castiel replied. He stood awkwardly and looked at the floor where he would have to spend the night. “Uh… do you think I can have a pillow?”

Meg raised her head at him with a crooked eyebrow and only then he’d noticed she’d moved to the far right side of the bed, leaving plenty of space for another person.

“Don’t be stupid. You’re not really sleeping on the floor.”

She turned around to lie with her back to him, as if to indicate she really didn’t care if he got into bed with her or not. Castiel hesitated, wondering what had brought the change of attitude exactly, but tentatively knelt on the bed and crawled to his side. Meg didn’t kick him out, so he turned off the night lamp.

“Do you have the habit of sleeping above the covers?” Meg asked.

“I’m trying to make this as… not awkward as possible,” he explained.

“Well, guess what, cowboy? It’s already awkward as all hell, so you might as well make yourself comfortable for the ride.”

She had a point there. Castiel pulled the covers aside and slipped underneath, still trying to get as far away from Meg as possible. In fact, there was so much space between there could have been a third person on the bed with them. He turned around to lie on his back and stared at the white ceiling. Despite the long trip, the small fights with Meg and the stressful day they had ahead, he didn’t feel tired in the least. It was going to be a long night. He moved a little and heard a huff coming from the other side of the bed. But when she spoke, she said the last thing Castiel was expecting:

“I used to think _Morningstar_ was a unicorn that had lost his horn.”

Castiel blinked several times and turned to look at her back. Her hair fell over the pillow and she was unnaturally rigid, almost as if she was trying to stay as still as possible.

“What?” he asked, unsure if he’d heard her right. But Meg sighed and repeated:

“I thought he was a unicorn, and that the spot on his forehead was where his horn used to be, and that he turned black when he lost it. Not this _Morningstar_ , of course, his father. My dad loved that horse. He taught me how to ride in him. My brother used to laugh at me every time I fell because my legs were too short to reach the stirrups.”

Castiel noticed she didn’t talk about her mother, but he thought it was better not to ask. Meg shifted her position a little, maybe a bit put off by Castiel’s silence.

“I’m only telling you because you told me that story about your brother and the fair horse,” she said. “Quid pro quo or whatever.”

It wasn’t an exact equivalent, but Castiel appreciated the intention anyway.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled. “I know I’ve been nothing but a pain in the ass, and tomorrow it’ll probably be worse until after the race. So… sorry you have to deal with that.”

Coming from her, it might as well had been a heartfelt apology.

“I know you’re worried,” he said. “But you need to remember, the entire fate of your ranch doesn’t depend on this one race.”

Meg didn’t answer for such a long time that he was sure she was already asleep. He started dozing off as well, so what she said next could very well have been a product of his imagination:

“It feels like it does.”

 

* * *

 

Somewhere in his sleep he heard an alarm beeping, but it turned off so fast he didn’t reach a level of consciousness in which he could be bothered by it. When he opened his eyes, he found the bed empty and the morning light seeping in through the window. The race was still four hours away, but apparently, Meg had decided to start early: there were sweaty gym clothes on the floor and the shower was on in the bathroom.

Castiel rubbed his eyes and turned on the TV to stay awake. He was still trying to accomplish that task while hearing the news anchor babble on about a baby panda born in the zoo when the water stopped running and Meg stepped outside. Apparently, she wasn’t in the least worried about appearing in nothing but a towel and wet hair to cover her.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” she said, sounding way too coherent for Castiel’s taste at that hour of the morning. “Get in the shower and get dressed. It’s seven thirty in the morning. We gotta be there by nine so we can saddle _Morningstar_ and…”

“Why do we have to saddle him?” Castiel complained with a yawn. “Don’t they’ve got, like… people who does that?”

“There’s two problems with that,” Meg said, as she opened her bag and took out a big pot of cream. “We would have to pay them and I don’t trust them not to sabotage me somehow.” She sat on the bed, poured cream on her hand and started spreading it up and down her legs before realized Castiel wasn’t moving. “Well, come on, Novak. Slow and steady doesn’t win a horserace.”

“Yes, you’ve said that,” Castiel groaned, but he finally kicked off the sheets aside and got in the bathroom.

Meg didn’t seem as on edge as the day before, or maybe he simply was still too groggy to notice it. What she did seem was energetic and hyperactive: in the time it took Castiel to take a quick shower, brush his teeth and get dressed, she was already up and ready to go. Of course, she protested to breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant.

“We are wasting our time,” she complained while Castiel quietly sipped his coffee, ignoring her. “You could’ve picked up a coffee to go on the way…”

“You haven’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon either,” he pointed out. “And you worked out earlier. You’re probably starving.”

“No, I’m not,” Meg said, crossing her arms over her chest. The only thing she needed to do now to look like even more of a bratty child was purse her lips. Castiel kept looking at her and not saying a word until she gave up: “I’m too nervous to eat, okay?”

Castiel slowly put his coffee cup down and looked at her intensely.

“Meg, I know we haven’t known each other that long,” he started. “We aren’t what people would consider friends. But despite that, you, me and _Morningstar_ … we are a team, and for us to win, each one of us has to do their best. Now, I can’t reason with a horse, but I want you to believe me when I say I am not above bribing and pressuring you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning at him.

“We are not leaving this hotel until you’ve had some breakfast.”

Meg called him some very unflattering things, but at least he got her to have some tea and a piece of toast with diet strawberry jam.

"There," she said, slamming the now empty mug on the table. "Are you happy now?"

"I'm satisfied," Castiel said simply. "Let's move."

Meg remained silent, arms crossed and face turned away from him, the entire trip to the racing track. Castiel didn't even attempt to make friendly conversation with her, choosing instead to turn on the radio.

"And the excitement is growing here at Churchill Downs," the radio host announced. "The Iroquois Stakes mark the start to the Kentucky Road, and there are both some old favorites as well as newcomers this year, isn't that right, Cassie?"

"Absolutely," Cassie replied. "Trainers and jockeys who have given excellent performances in past years..."

"Could you turn that off?" Meg groaned.

Castiel didn't turn it off, but he did change the station to a musical one. Meg looked extremely pale by the time they parked the car, but her lips were tightened in a line of pure determination.

"I'll go change and get weighed and all that shit," she decided while they entered the track. "And you just make sure that no one but you saddles _Morningstar_ , you hear me?"

"Loud and clear. Meg," he called her when she was starting to turn away. "It's going to be okay."

She seemed skeptical, but that was all the consolation Castiel could offer. She nodded at him and wandered off to prepare.

 _Morningstar_ was fussy, but that was no novelty. He snorted and shook his mane when he saw Castiel coming into his cubicle, but he at least remained still while Castiel checked his shoes and put the reins on him. Some people from the track approached him to offer him help, but Castiel politely turned them down. Meg would have never known he'd broken his promise to her, but he would know. When he was done, he patted _Morningstar_ on the muzzle.

"Look, this is really important to Meg," he explained to him. "So maybe if you could just... behave for one day, that’d be really swell of you."

 _Morningstar_ scowled at him and shook his mane again, signaling he was going to do exactly what he wanted to do, as usual. Castiel started wondering if the horse was that way because Meg was that way.

"Dear Jesus, look at that monster," someone commented behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see a bald man in a flannel shirt behind him. "That's one fine Thoroughbred if I've ever seen one."

"Thank you," Castiel said with a polite smile. "It's his first race."

That was a stupid thing to say. All the horses there were colts and fillies running for the first time. Maybe he was more nervous than he had thought. The bald man smiled at him.

"It's your first race too, son?" he asked. There was really no way Castiel could deny it. "Well, don't expect much from your boy here. First time trainers don't always know what they got themselves into until the stalls' door open. Don't feel too bad about it."

He was smiling, but Castiel didn't like his words or the way they stung. Not to mention that if _Morningstar_ did poorly, then it might as well be Castiel's last race as well. He hadn't thought about that. Perhaps Meg was so nervous about this precisely because she wouldn't have the money to go on if she didn't win.

"Well, I trust him," Castiel said, patting _Morningstar_ again. The colt was glaring at the bald man as if he was planning to take a bite of him and Castiel wasn't sure he would have stopped him. "And I also trust my jockey."

"Who's he running with?"

"Me," Meg intervened from the side. "Hello, Campbell."

Campbell's face immediately lost his friendly demeanor.

"Masters," he spat, almost as if the name was an insult. "I'm surprise they're letting you run, after what your brother tried to pull..."

"Tom's an idiot, but I'm not," Meg replied with a little shrug. Her confidence seemed to return in the face of an adversary. "You'd be better off making sure your horse is in conditions to run instead of trying to psych up my trainer, so why don't you scram?"

Campbell narrowed his eyes at her, but he wished them luck and sauntered away.

"What was that all about?" Castiel asked as Meg walked into the stall. Other jockeys were wearing extravagant colors, but Meg’s jacket was a simple checkered white and black. She had hidden her long black hair underneath the helmet and made Castiel hold her whip as she double checked his job with the horseshoes and the reins.

"You spend years on the tracks, you form a few rivalries," Meg replied with a shrug. “Don’t mind him, though. He’s just one of several jerks around.”

She mounted _Morningstar_ in one fluid movement as if to signal the end of the conversation, but Castiel wasn’t done.

“What did he mean with what your brother tried to pull?”

“That’s a sad story for another time, Castiel,” Meg replied. “Now just help me out of here, will you?”

“ _Morningstar the Third_ from the Morningstar Ranch,” one of the track helpers called. He looked at the horse, nodded to himself and ticked off something from his holder. “You get number thirteen.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Meg exclaimed, loud enough that some faces turned to look at them. The boy who was carrying the saddle blankets stopped on his track and gave them a slightly terrified look, as if he was fearing they would hit him.

“Meg, please,” Castiel muttered and received the blanket. “Thank you.”

“I’m going to scream,” Meg commented as he placed it over _Morningstar_ ’s back.

“I didn’t know you were superstitious,” Castiel commented, as he adjusted the saddle over the colt. “Given that you’re riding a horse named after the Devil, I don’t think the number thirteen can do much against that.”

Meg twisted her mouth to the side.

"You're nowhere near as cute as you think you are," she lashed out. She readjusted the saddles he had just adjusted and grabbed _Morningstar_ 's reins.

"Okay," Castiel said, trying not to laugh, because at that point, Meg's nervousness was grazing on comical. "Well, I'll see you after the race, I suppose."

"We'll buy some booze on the way to the hotel," Meg replied. "I'm going to need it."

She coaxed _Morningstar_ out of his cubicle and guided him out of the stables. Castiel followed the rest of the people towards their seats on the stands. He noticed Campbell talking to some of the other trainers and thought some glances were being point on his direction, but he discarded those impressions as Meg rubbing her anxiety on him.

The air in the stands was one of celebration and anticipation. People were talking loudly and making bets, hooting at the vendors and laughing. The weather was still very pleasant, with a soft breeze to counteract the sun shining high.

He found a very quiet corner in the shadow from which to watch the race and bought some peanuts from a passing vendor. He was strangely serene. He had done everything in his power to get to where they were, but even though he was convinced there was much more that he could have done, it was out of his hands now. It was entirely up to Meg and _Morningstar_.

Campbell and two other men sat right by his side and stared at him until Castiel was forced to acknowledge their presence.

"Something I can do for you, gentlemen?"

"Look, kid, we just want to warn you," Campbell said, an expression so grave in his face that one might have suspected someone had died. "You seem like a nice person. You shouldn't be working for that crook and his sister."

Castiel tilted his head at them. It seemed Meg's bad reputation followed wherever she went. That wasn't all too surprising at this point; the novelty was that they were blaming Meg's brother for... whatever it was that they were blaming them for.

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"Leave it, Samuel," one of the other men said, giving Castiel what had to be the definition of the stink eye. He had a cowboy hat and his speech was slurry. "He's probably as dirty as they are," he groaned after he was done.

"Well, that is a bit of a rushed judgment," Castiel said. He was fully aware he was now stepping on their nerves, but he didn't appreciate being suspect of foul-play. "We have only just met. You accusing me of cheating it'd be just like me accusing you of being a paranoid drunk."

The men stood up, fist clenching tight as his friends stood as well to try and hold him back. Castiel didn't even flinch.

"The race is about to start," he reminded them calmly. "And I'm sure the track's authorities don't tolerate this sort of behavior."

"They can bite me and so can you," the drunk cowboy said, but he didn't attempt to take another swing at Castiel. So that was a win.

"That's enough," Campbell intervened, standing up as well. "Look, kid, it's just a friendly advice. You lie with dogs, you wake up with fleas."

"Yeah. And tell Masters we're going to be watching for her," the cowboy added. "We remember what happened two years ago and if they try anything again, they're not getting away so easy this time."

"I'll be sure to let her know," Castiel replied, with the kindest smile he could conjure up.

The fact they couldn't rile him up was apparently both very confusing and disturbing for the men, because they left him alone. Castiel could still feel the sting of their eyes over him, but he ate his peanuts and waited for the career to start.

"Welcome to Churchill Downs in this beautiful day here in Louisville," the presenter said. Some people clapped at the announcement. Jockeys and horses were lining up at the gate. Castiel spotted _Morningstar_ 's lustrous black hair between a palomino and chestnut with white legs. "We are about to start this year's Iroquois Stakes and we already have all the competitors at the gate. Some very promising names this year, some newcomers and some unexpected comebacks. We're going to see how well they fare on the track. They're all at the gate now..."

Castiel lifted his head to watch trying to ignore the knot that his stomach had become suddenly. He was still not letting Meg's hysteria go to his head. He was going to remain calm no matter what happened, because somebody had to be…

"And they're off! _Flash Feet_ quickly takes the lead, with _Mr. Robinson's Truck_ right behind him... _Morningstar the Third_ struggling in fifth..."

"What are you doing?" Castiel muttered to himself, although what he really wanted to do was shout at Meg to fucking hurry up. Even if he had screamed, he wasn't sure his voice could have been heard over the uproar of the other trainers on the bench:

"Come on, boy, you can do it!"

"Make them eat your dust!"

"... _Thou Shall Not Lie_ is now head to head with _Flash Feet_ as they pass the half mile pole... _Morningstar the Third_ stays in a safe fourth place..."

"You can do better than that!" Castiel shouted, not even realizing his voice would be lost in the screams and the cheers. "Come on, Meg!"

But suddenly it hit him: the horses at the top of the race had used up all their energy to get the initial advantage. They would sag down when they were approaching the finish line and then…

"… but the distance is dwindling now… _Morningstar the Third_ passes _Mr. Robinson's Truck…_ he passes _Thou Shall Not Lie…_ things are changing up top now, with _Morningstar the Third_ and _Flash Feet_ moving in for the final stretch…"

"Go, go, go!" Castiel shouted as _Morningstar_ past right by him like a dark blur, leaving his competitors behind to eat his dust in one last bolt of speed.

“And _Morningstar the Third_ finishes first by two lengths!”

“Yes!” Castiel shouted, throwing his hands in the air and making it rain peanuts everywhere. His heart was beating on his chest so fast he didn’t even notice the looks of the other trainers as he run from the stands and out to the track.

“This is a maiden victory for this colt and a very impressive one,” the announcer was commenting. “ _Morningstar the Third_ is owned by Thomas Masters and Megan Masters, who is also his jockey, from the Morningstar Ranch. The trainer is Castiel Novak…”

Meg had taken off her helmet and let her hair long black hair flow free as she made _Morningstar_ trot out his victory. Her cheeks were rosy from the effort and the grin in her face was one of pure euphoria, one that lit up all of her features. The moment she saw Castiel, she pulled from the reins and stopped the colt, beckoning him to come closer. Castiel wasn’t sure what he was about to do was allowed, but he run towards her, grabbed her hand and mounted behind her on the horse. Somebody took a picture of him grabbing her by the waist and leaning over to whisper in her ear, and later, that would be the picture that showed up everywhere when announcing the winner of the Iroquois Stakes along with the one of Meg crossing the finish line.

But he wasn’t telling her anything inappropriate.

“What happened to slow and steady doesn’t win the horserace?”

“Oh, shut up,” Meg replied, throwing her head backwards to let out a jovial chortle. “Made you squirm for a little bit, huh?”

Castiel burst out laughing. Of course she had done it on purpose.

 

* * *

 

Meg’s appetite returned in full force with her victory. Castiel had never in his life seen such a small woman devour such a big hamburger and ingest such quantities of beer in such a short period of time.

“Fuck the diet,” Meg commented in between bites. “I have time to burn this burger to hell and back until the next race.”

“Which is going to be…?”

“Haven’t even decided yet,” Meg admitted, but she didn’t seem all that worried about it. “But we got one hundred and fifty grand more than we did yesterday, so you know what that means?”

“You’re finally going to pay Dr. Richardson what you owe her?”

“Oh, my God, you’re such a bore,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “Yes, I’m going to pay my dues, but you and I should go out and paint Louisville. What say you, huh? Let’s have some fun!”

By the excitement shining in her eyes, it was almost as if she had won the Triple Crown already. And she looked so happy and pleased with herself that Castiel almost hated having to bring her back to earth.

“Well, I’m sure we can do that, but I have to be home Sunday afternoon to pick up Claire…”

“Just call Jody and say we got stuck on the road,” Meg suggested. “I’m sure she won’t mind having her for another day.”

“… and you have to be at the ranch when they deliver _Morningstar_ ,” he reminded her. “Because you’re so paranoid you wouldn’t give Benny permission to sign in your name.”

“Buzz kill,” she replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

But she didn’t seem too bothered by it as she signaled the waitress to bring them another beer. The monitors above the bar kept playing the race on repeat and announced how much the winners had made that day. Meg stared at it with a prideful smirk and forced Castiel to make a toast when they served them the beers.

He still noticed they were sitting in the loneliest booth in all of the restaurant. The winners of the second and the third place had rather larger groups with them and they had been approached by other trainers and owners to shake hands and offer congratulations. However, nobody had come over to them. Castiel was trying not to let it irk him, but he couldn’t help it after the treatment he had received before the race.

Meg realized which way he was looking and shook her head.

“Ignore those assholes,” she told him. “It bothers them to no end that we won fair and square.”

Meg put her beer down and for a second, a shadow was cast on her face.

“Did I tell you about the time we were about to run in the goddamn Kentucky Derby?”

Castiel crooked an eyebrow. She most certainly had not told him about that.

“ _Zeus_ made the cut. He had an amazing season,” Meg said. “We had everything set, we were eligible, we had the money. It was going to be the greatest thing ever. Ruby was so excited… and Tom fucked it up. Big time. He was basically running a Ponzi Scheme with _my_ horse.”

Castiel noticed that, technically, the horse belonged to the two of them, but he refrained from pointing it out.

“He invented the rumor that _Zeus_ was going to run a claiming race after the Kentucky Derby, but that he could make a private sale if they paid him forward. He promised it to three different persons and the fools fucking gave him the money.” Meg groaned, though it was hard to tell if she was more offended by her brother’s criminal acts or by his victims’ naivety. “And then he used that money to pay his gambling debts, of which Ruby and I had no clue. Looking back, it was best they caught him and disqualify us before we run in the Derby, because can you imagine how humiliating it might have been if we had run and won? And then they stripped us from the title? How many times has that happened?”

“I think only once before,” Castiel nodded.

“It was a mess anyway,” Meg continued. “We lost the points we needed to be eligible, Ruby almost lost her license to train and the ranch lost a lot of money paying back the people Tom had conned so we wouldn’t be banned from running forever. Our name became synonym with cheating, so I’m not surprised at all that no one came to congratulate us.”

Her tone had become embittered once more, so Castiel stretched his hand over the table to grab hers.

“I understand,” he said. “You lost a lot in the past couple of years. So… of course you want to celebrate whatever small victory comes your way.”

She looked down at her hand, and then back at him. Castiel realized he had probably crossed some sort of line and tried to move his hand away, but before he could, she grabbed it and squeezed it.

“Yeah,” she chuckled. “Even the ones I didn’t see coming.”


	12. Motivation

Claire was having an excellent weekend. Friday afternoon had been wonderful, hanging with Ben, Alexis and _Bilbo_ on the cliffs, listening to music, drinking soda and not really worrying about homework because they had two entire days for it. They told jokes, they laughed, they didn't have a care in the world. They sang along to the stereo on the way back to the town while _Bilbo_ barked with his head poking through the window. It wasn't a big adventure, but Claire couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much fun.

And Friday night was even better.

"Claire, come on, you don't have to sleep on the floor," Alexis protested when Claire started unrolling her sleeping bag. "The bed's big enough for the two of us. I don't mind."

Claire looked at the empty space besides Alexis and pondered for a second about the morality of what she was doing. Because – and there was no denying this – she liked Alexis. A lot. And she was thankful that Alexis had welcomed her so easily into her circle of friends and accepted to have her at her house. But if she knew the way Claire thought about her, would she be so open to let her share a bed with her?

In the end, Claire decided it didn't matter. She wasn't going to try anything, of course, and if Alexis didn't have a problem, she would much rather avoid sleeping on the floor.

"Okay," she muttered, climbing next to Alexis. _Bilbo_ raised his head when he perceived the movement and went to put his head over the covers. "No, we've talked about this. You're not allowed on the bed. Come on."

 _Bilbo_ let out a groan of protest, but went back to the corner where Claire had placed his pillow and his squeaky toy.

"He's so well-behaved," Alexis commented, as they settled down on the sheets.

"Yeah," Claire said. "Did you know dogs understand you when you speak to them?"

"They understand you better than some guys," Alexis said, with a tone so angry Claire turned to look at her. But Alexis hit the lights and the room was too dark to make out her expression.

"I guess so," Claire muttered.

Alexis remained so quiet for a moment Claire thought she had fallen asleep.

"He listens a lot more than Henry," she commented in the end.

"He didn't strike me as the kind who takes no for an answer," Claire said, hoping she was being tactful about it.

"That was why we broke up," Alexis confessed, her voice dropping to a confidential whisper. "You know, he wanted us to... and I wasn't ready."

Claire swallowed loudly. She didn't like the direction the conversation was going, because if they kept going the same way, she would have to talk about her own experiences with guys, and those weren't experiences that made for good small talk before going to sleep. And she also wasn't ready to confess that while boys were perfectly fine, some boys she even found attractive, but boys weren't her main interest those days.

"Well, he deserves losing you for being a douche," she commented.

Alexis let out a small chuckle and rolled over to face Claire. She was smiling and Claire smiled back, but she froze when she heard the horrible question she was hoping to avoid:

"And what about you? Have you ever, like… been with a guy? As in… you know what I mean."

Claire knew what she meant. And she didn't want to lie to Alexis, but she also didn't want to tell her the truth. She let the silence go on for too long while she wondered how to walk that very fine line, but in the end, she didn't have to say anything.

There was a knock on the glass that startled them both. _Bilbo_ stood up, ears raised in attention and eyes fixed on the window.

"What was that?"

"I don't know."

The knock came again and this time, they both sat up, looking at each other. Alexis had her clear eyes opened wide and Claire could feel her heart pounding in her throat.

"Should we call my mom?"

"I'll take too long. _Bilbo_ , come here, boy," Claire called him as she kicked the sheets aside. The dog immediately went to her, the hairs on his back standing up and a slow growl growing in his chest. Claire grabbed him by the collar while Alexis picked up a baseball bat from underneath her bed.

They stared at each other when a third knock came in. Claire nodded briefly. Alexis walked towards the window, the baseball bat up and ready and pulled the cord to open the pane.

Someone screamed, or maybe the both of them did and _Bilbo_ started barking madly. There was a guy in the window, his face shadowed by the hoodie he was wearing and his hand raised to give another knock. Every bad scenario for that situation ran through Claire's head in the second it took for the guy to remove his hoodie and reveal… it was just Ben.

"Guys," he mouthed. "Let me in."

"Goddammit," Alexis said. She opened the window, but instead of pushing Ben down like a part of Claire wanted to do, she helped him clamber up inside. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Sorry," Ben said, looking down at his shoes. "I just... you know..."

Another knock, more insistent and firm, came from the door.

"Girls?" Jody called from outside. "Are you okay? I heard a scream... why is the dog barking?"

"Shit," Alexis muttered.

"Hide," Claire indicated to Ben and quickly turned with _Bilbo_ towards the door.

Jody looked like she had been pried away from deep slumber: her short black hair was in complete disarray and the jumper she had placed over her pajama was creased and had holes in it. Claire imagined she didn't wear it where people could see it a lot.

"Sorry, Mrs. Mills," she said, trying to keep _Bilbo_ in place, because the dog was trying to escape her grip and sniffle underneath the bed. Claire suspected that was where Ben was hiding. "I had a nightmare. I screamed and that freaked _Bilbo_ out."

"It's alright, mom." Alexis came to the door, smiling innocently like nothing had happened at all. "Sorry we woke you up."

Jody wasn't convinced by their explanation. She looked over her shoulder at the room.

"Why is the window open?" she asked.

"It was hot," Claire and Alexis said, almost in unison. At least it was better than if they had gone with different lies.

Jody narrowed her eyes at them, as if she wasn't entirely convinced they were being honest, but she didn't have enough evidence to accuse them of the contrary.

"A nightmare, huh?" she asked. "You shouldn't really watch all those gory movies."

"Yeah, I'm trying to cut back on those," Claire said, with an awkward shrug.

Jody took one last long look at the room, but she didn't find anything out of the ordinary. Finally, she wished them goodnight and ordered them back to bed. Claire closed the door and both she and Alexis leaned to hear until Jody's steps vanished.

"Okay," Alexis said when the hallway turned silent. "You can come out now."

Ben popped his head from underneath the bed.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I think we're in the clear," Claire confirmed.

"What the hell, Benjamin?" Alexis asked as he crawled out. "Did it occur to you that my mom's the sheriff? We have guns in this house!"

"I know," Ben said, looking down at his shoes, contrite. "And I'm really sorry I freaked you out, guys. I just... I didn't want to be alone at home."

"What do you mean alone?" Claire asked. "Aren't your mom and your stepdad there?"

"You see, that's the thing. I forgot it was their anniversary, so they decided to go to a restaurant in the city... which is in a fancy hotel... and they left a note saying they wouldn't be back until the morning."

He grimaced and Claire and Alexis nodded. The only thing more disturbing than having sex was the thought of parents and legal guardians having sex.

"But because they ambushed me, I didn't have time to invite anybody over," Ben kept explaining. "So I was home, alone. And I started watching this movie... it was about this demon and... stop laughing, you guys, it was creepy!"

Alexis was trying to suffocate her giggles by covering her mouth with her hand, but Claire didn't even bother.

"So let me get this straight: you got scared, drove all the way here and risked being shot by the sheriff because of a movie about a demon?"

Ben scratched the back of his neck.

"Well, when you put it that way..."

"Oh, my God," Alexis openly laughed at him this time. "You are such a coward!"

"Wait, hold on, which movie was it?" Claire asked.

"Does it matter?" Alexis wanted to know with a snort.

"Yeah, because if he lost his nerve to _Exorcist II_ , I will personally shove him out of the window."

"It was _Emily Rose_."

"Okay, he can stay," Claire decided.

Alexis shook her head, but didn't protest.

Ben laid down on the sleeping bag along the bed on Claire's side, so in a way, she was now between her two new friends. She didn't know why, but the thought made her feel safer. She laughed a lot when _Bilbo_ stood from his bed and went to lick Ben's face, as if he was apologizing for barking at him or showing solidarity for a fellow creature that wasn't allowed on the bed.

"Okay, okay. Down, boy. Yeah, you can sleep with me, I guess," Ben told him. "We don't need no stinking mattress, now, do we?"

Claire smiled and threw a pillow at him. Ben stuck her tongue out at her.

"Okay, guys, stop it. We don't want to wake my mom again," Alexis reminded them. She turned the lights off once more and the three – the four, counting _Bilbo_ – settle down for the night.

"So what were you doing before I showed up?" Ben asked in a whisper. He obviously wasn't tired and after the rush of adrenaline, neither were the girls.

"We were talking about Captain Douche and how he deserves to die a virgin, untouched and unloved for the rest of his sad life."

"Claire!" Alexis scolded her.

"What? We were!"

"And he does," Ben agreed. "I don't think he's a virgin, though. He was making out with Maisie Bennet at Josephine's party."

"Making out doesn't mean they had sex."

"Okay, why are we talking about my ex's sex life?" Alexis asked, a hint of irritation in her voice.

"Well, it's not like our inexistent sex lives are that much more interesting," Ben chuckled. "Right?"

"Right," Claire agreed.

"Right," Alexis sighed.

And to Claire's relief, the topic was settled with that.

"So... is this movie really that bad?" Alexis wanted to know.

“It’s awesome,” Claire said, at the same time Ben exclaimed:

“It’s super creepy!”

“So, there’s this lawyer, who is an atheist…”

 

* * *

 

Saturday morning was... complicated.

Claire woke up first. The room was sunbathed since they had forgotten to close the blinds. Alexis looked relaxed and calm, and for several minutes, Claire allowed herself to just watch her rest. She couldn't understand who would be stupid enough to break up with her. She was funny and smart and Claire really, really needed to stop thinking of her friend like that.

Her attention immediately passed to what had woken her up: _Bilbo_ was pacing the floor in front of the door, scratching it with its paw and whimpering softly. At least he was respectful enough to know that peeing into Alexis’ bedroom would forever banish him from that house, along with his master, probably.

She stepped over Ben to avoid waking him up and grabbed a hoodie she found on the floor (didn't even give it a second thought as to whom it belonged to). She opened the door for _Bilbo_ and he trotted downstairs, barking with happiness. Claire followed him to open the back door for him.

Jody was already on the kitchen making breakfast.

"Good morning," she greeted Claire with a smile. "Do you like pancakes?"

"Do I?" Claire laughed and sat on the kitchen aisle to watch her bet the mix and pour it onto the pan. Outside of the window, she could see _Bilbo_ running around and trying to find the perfect spot to do his stuff. It was a warm September morning, there were birds chirping and she was looking forward to spending another day with her friends. She hadn't felt that peaceful in a while.

"Watch this, please," Jody told her, pointing at the pan sizzling over the oven. "I'm going to go wake Alexis up."

The sudden rush of panic immediately disintegrated Claire's inner calm.

"What? No!" she said, and then took a breath to try and sound a little more rational. "No, I mean... we stayed up late talking and she's probably tired. Why don't you let her sleep? It's Saturday!"

"You're already up," Jody pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's because I'm part rooster. I'm always up early," Claire lied.

"It's almost eleven." Jody crooked an eyebrow and Claire realized that she was going to have to get a little more creative with her lying if she wanted Ben to survive.

"I, uh... you can't leave me alone with the breakfast!" she argued. "I'm a total disaster cooking. Ask my uncle, I really, really suck. I'm probably going to burn the pancakes or something equally horrible and embarrassing like that, so please don't..."

"Don't worry, they won't be ready until I come back," Jody said. "And if they start smoking, just turn off the stove. I trust you can at least do that."

"I can't do that," Claire said, her desperation growing increasingly. "I'm dumb. Very dumb. I, uh... I'll go wake Alexis!" she suggested, finally glad her stupid mind had come up with a good excuse. "Yeah, you keep an eye on the pancakes, and I'll go bring her down. Everybody would be better off."

Jody tilted her head. Claire knew the look in her eyes: it was the look her uncle and teachers gave her when they thought she was lying or giving them sass. In this case, Jody might not have been entirely wrong, but it was best if she didn't know that.

"Okay," she agreed in the end. "You go then."

Claire ran upstairs, her heart beating in her chest. That had been a close call, but they weren't out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. When she returned, she realized she had left the room's door open wide and that if Jody had passed by on the way to the bathroom, she could have totally noticed that the figure sleeping on the bag wasn't Claire. She had already made two mistakes in covering for Ben and the third one could be the one that totally screw them up.

"Guys! Guys, wake up!" she called them, after making damn sure the door was closed behind her.

Ben groaned and rolled over, covering his face with the pillow, but at least Alexis sat down and rubbed her eyes.

"What is it?" she yawned.

"Your mom's making pancakes."

"Mmh... pancakes," Ben muttered, his voice muffled by the pillow. "Yes, I'd like some. Bring me a couple."

Claire snatched the pillow from him and immediately slapped him with it.

"Pay attention!" she demanded. "We can't bring you pancakes because Jody doesn't know you're up here!"

That woke him up.

"Oh, shit, you're right," he said, his eyes opening wide. "What do we do?"

Claire looked at Alexis, because honestly she had no idea. She could almost see the wheels turning behind her friend's eyes.

"The kitchen's window gives to the backyard," she commented. "She'll see you."

"I don't want to get shot!" Ben said, putting a hand over his chest as if he had been already hit by a bullet.

"You're not gonna get shot," Alexis said, kicking the sheets aside and springing into action. "This is what we'll do."

Two minutes later, she and Claire came down, laughing and pretending everything was fine, cool as cucumbers.

"I see you're in a good mood," Jody commented. She was already serving the pancakes on the kitchen isle, but it would be very irresponsible to give Ben the signal until they had lured her away from the kitchen at the very least.

"Yeah, Claire was just telling me this very funny joke..."

"It's not that funny," Claire said, because if she had to tell a joke in front of Jody she was going to die of second hand embarrassment. "No, really."

"I'd love to hear it," Jody said, smiling at her.

She was so kind and welcoming Claire actually felt a bit of a pang of guilt stalling and lying to her like that. She watched the clock. It was still too soon to use the excuse they had prepared.

"So, it's about, uh... _Bilbo_!" she screamed, glad to have an excuse. _Bilbo_ was rolling on the grass, his long tongue hanging out of his mouth. Jody looked at him over her shoulder and chuckled a little.

"You've got a dog with personality there," she commented.

"Yeah," Claire mumbled and turned to look at Alexis. She came to her rescue after taking a bite of the pancakes.

"So, mom, today Claire and I aren't going anywhere," she started. "We're just going to stay here and do homework."

That got Jody to pay complete attention to her daughter.

"Homework," she repeated, as if she was making sure she had heard that right.

"Yes," Alexis said, stone-faced. Maybe it wasn't that hard, because Claire suddenly remembered they did had a bunch of homework.

"Okay, I'll bite," Jody decided. "What do you guys want?"

"A pot of ice cream when you come back from work would be nice," Alexis said, smiling wide. "It would be a great motivation after a long afternoon of studying and filling out young minds with knowledge..."

"You're overselling it," Jody warned her. "Fine, I'll stop but the ice cream shop on the way back. But please, actually do your homework."

"Of course."

"Absolutely."

Their innocent faces might have been too fake, because Jody narrowed her eyes at them suspiciously. At least now she was expecting them to do something, instead of thinking they already had.

There was some more cringe-inducing small talks around the pancakes. Claire kept watching the clock and counting the minutes, but she must have been very bad at it, because Jody noticed right away.

"What is it, girl? You got somewhere to be or are you counting the seconds until I leave?"

"Mom," Alexis groaned.

"No, it's just... the race," Claire explained. That was the excuse they had prepared. "You know, Meg... uh, Mrs. Masters' running on the horse my uncle trained. I want to see how it turns out."

Jody made the same grimace as everyone in town when Meg Masters was mentioned, but she swallowed it. Even though the truth was that if they weren't harboring a fugitive in Alexis’ bedroom, Claire wouldn't have care less about the hell horse and her boss.

"Sure, maybe there's a sports channel broadcasting it," she shrugged. "Though for the life of me, I can't see why."

"Well, the horses are the athletes," Claire explained. "And my uncle would be like, their coach. And you know, they have to form a team for them to run a good race..."

She stumbled upon her words and put another piece of pancake in her mouth, just to stop talking.

"I would love to learn to ride," Alexis commented. "I'm sure you're incredible."

Claire was glad she had already swallowed, lest she would be choking a bit.

"Yeah, you know... I don't fall."

Alexis giggled and Claire prayed to God she wasn't blushing. The heat in her face may have been an indication she might have been better off requesting Satan's help.

They finished breakfast and they moved to the living room. They couldn't find a single channel broadcasting the career, but Alexis had the brilliant idea to stream it on the computer. They gathered around the laptop on the coffee table and Claire sent a single text on her cellphone.

"Wishing your uncle good luck?"

"Yep," Claire lied again. It was becoming easier by the second.

"There we go!" Alexis said.

It hadn't started yet, but the horses all were located by the gate. Claire calculated it would be over in a minute and a half, maybe two minutes if the horses were slow, and that was the frame of time Ben had to jump down the window and run to his car while Jody watched the race with them.

"And they're off! _Flash Feet_ quickly takes the lead…"

"What?" Claire asked, leaning over the computer. "That can't be right, he's much faster!"

"Well, maybe he isn't having a good day," Jody shrugged. "Why is your dog barking?"

The panic returned to Claire's gut, not only because _Bilbo_ was probably barking at Ben coming down the window, but also because the hell horse was still too far behind...

"It's nothing, mom," Alexis said. "Maybe he saw a squirrel or something."

"Those things better not be eating my plants," Jody commented, taking a step towards the kitchen again.

"They're they go!" Claire exclaimed, as the black blur that was the hell horse started leaving rivals behind. "Come on!"

"Yes!" Alexis agreed with her, showing more enthusiasm that was probably necessary. "Come on... what's its name?"

" _Morningstar_."

"Really?"

 _“Morningstar the Third_ and _Flash Feet_ moving in for the final stretch... and _Morningstar the Third_ finishes first by a length!”

"Yes!" Claire shouted, pumping the air.

"Not bad," Jody commented, looking over their shoulders. "Maybe your uncle can actually do something for that wretched place after all."

Claire didn't tell her that she actually thought the ranch was very beautiful. She smiled at her while Jody said their goodbyes and warned them again about actually doing their homework. The girls waited on the couch until they saw her car leaving the driveway and then flew upstairs.

All traces of Ben were gone. They sighed in relief and a second later, they burst into hysterical laughter.

 

* * *

 

Castiel wasn't sure who proposed the excursion. After lunch, they still had hours to kill and the thought of going back to the hotel and binge-watching TV was depressing to them both. So instead, they crossed the street and purchased tickets for the Kentucky Derby Museum.

"You know, I have been to Louisville like, half a dozen times," Meg said. "But I never came to this place. Ruby said museums bored her to death," she explained when Castiel shot her a confused look about it.

"Well, I happen to like them. And perhaps I can buy a gift for Claire."

"Oh, gift shopping, yes," Meg giggled. "That's always fun."

She dragged him to the shop as soon as they set a foot inside. And of course, she had to do in the quickest, messiest of ways: she took off all of the headwear and hats that were on display and tried them on one by one, laughing every time Castiel told her that she didn't need them because she was always running the races, not just watching them from the stands.

"Well, maybe you should get one, then," she teased him, standing on the tip of her toes to place a hat on his head. "You look pretty."

"I reckon blue is my color." He shrugged and Meg chuckled.

But he couldn't deny he did enjoy it. Meg was so much easier to get along with when she was happy: she laughed and she joked and she actually offered constructive opinions on what he should get for Claire.

"No, come on, she doesn't really like horses," she said, trying to persuade him from purchasing a figurine of American Pharaoh. "And besides, those things are way overpriced."

The gift shop's clerk shot them a look of discontent, but they ignored her.

"She used to have a lot of these in her room," he commented while they approached the plush shelves. They were all horses in different colorations, of course. "I gave her one of Grumpy Cat in her fifteenth birthday. It's a cat that's Internet famous because she has this really sulky face," he explained when Meg crooked an eyebrow at him. "Reminded me of Claire because she's not always, you know, the brightest ray of sunshine. But she's a good girl, though. She's smart. She's strong."

"Stop," Meg ordered him, and Castiel obeyed with a sigh. "She got rid of all the plush toys, didn't she?"

"She said she didn't need them anymore one day and gave them all away to Toys for Tots." He nodded. "How did you know?"

"'Cause it was also the first thing I did when I wanted to show I was a big, independent girl," she said, rolling her eyes. "Perfectly natural. It's part of growing up. The other part is making out with a lot of people. I'm not saying she will," she added quickly when she saw the horror on his face. "Not all girls deal with their teenage rebellion the same way. Some of them just do drugs. That's not any better, is it?"

Castiel purchased a plushie of a chestnut horse. Perhaps because the thought of Claire making out with a lot of people and doing drugs terrified him and he would have given anything for her to keep even a small part of her childhood alive after everything she'd been through.

"You are an impossible sap," Meg said, shaking her head, but he didn't really mind. She looked very pretty when she was angry, but even more so when she smiled.

He was never going to say such things out loud. He liked to live.

They walked around the museum aimlessly, ignoring the group of tourist that sometimes glared at them for not joining them or moving on without them. Castiel almost wanted to tell them that was for the best. Meg would have probably got bored if she was forced to keep their pace or she would have started arguing with the tour guides just to prove she knew more about horses than they did.

But wandering through the exhibits, she actually seemed at ease. She spent a lot of time reading notorious jockeys stories and looking at the pictures of past winners lined up on the walls witch such attention Castiel deduced she was looking for someone.

"There he is," she said, when she finally found it.

It was a picture of a man with messy grey hair, standing next to a black horse that was nearly identical to their Morningstar. The inscription of the picture read: "Luc Masters, owner. Morningstar, winner 1978."

"Your grandfather."

"And _Morningstar's_ ," Meg laughed. "We were both bred for running, in a way."

Her voice had a bitter note that surprised him. He supposed she was going to be happy about it, proud even. That she was going to brag about her horse being a champion as well as she had when she first showed it to him.

"I think it's very noble," he said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence. "That you're trying to keep his legacy alive, I mean."

"Why would I want that? The guy was a bastard," she said, surprising him again. "Oh, don't get me wrong, he was brilliant. Charismatic. Could manipulate you into doing anything he wanted. While he was alive, my dad did everything in his power to please him. You want me to enter this race even though it'll cost us a lot of money we can't afford if we lose? I'll do it, sure. You want me to buy this horse we have never seen race? Absolutely, you know best. You want me to send my wife away because you don't like her and pay her to never see our children again?"

She stopped, as if she had said too much. Castiel looked away and pretended not to hear her sniffle or how she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"They called him Lucifer for a reason," she kept saying. "When he died, he skipped dad and left the ranch to me and Tom. It was a way to make sure Dad couldn't sell it. He kept being a control freak even beyond the grave. He didn't need to do that, though. Dad would've been brokenhearted to even think about getting rid of the place."

"So that's why you don't want to sell it," Castiel understood. "Because of your Dad."

"It's my home." Meg shrugged. "Besides, can you imagine what a spit in this bastard's eye would have been if my _Morningstar_ turns out to be better than his?"

"So... you're motivated by spite.”

“What other motivation is there?” she snickered.

 

* * *

 

They stayed in the museum until it closed and drove around Louisville for a couple of hours, with Meg pointing out all the interesting spots. When it got late, they stopped by a drive through to get dinner.

Apparently, Meg's desire for filling herself up with junk food had passed, because she ordered the more sensible meal of some salad and bottled water. They didn't want to go back to the hotel, so they stayed in the parking lot and munched together in silence.

It was strangely pleasant.

"Someday I'll retire and then I'll put on twenty pounds. On purpose," she commented, throwing an envious look at Castiel's burger.

"I'm sure the horses won't be glad to hear that."

"Not like they can complain."

Castiel laughed as he took a bite.

"I probably shouldn't be eating these," he commented. "They're no good for my circulatory system. I'm an old man, as Claire keeps reminding me. I should take care of my health."

"Oh, come on, you're not that old." Meg rolled her eyes at him. "Teenage girls just think everybody else is old by comparison to them."

"That might be the case," Castiel admitted cautiously. "But I am turning thirty five next month."

Meg looked at him like she was a little surprise to hear that.

"I turned twenty eight in July."

Castiel almost chokes on his burger.

"You... you did?" he asked, suddenly embarrassed for reasons he couldn't comprehend. "I didn't know. I'm sorry, Meg. I didn't get you anything..."

"Well, of course you didn't know. I didn't say anything. Andrea tried to convince me she should bake me a cake or some bullshit like that, but I told her there was nothing to celebrate."

"But there is," Castiel tried to insist, but the sharp glance Meg shot him told him it was better not to insist on the topic.

They finished their dinner and there was nothing left to do. Unless they wanted to go to a bar or a club of some kind, but Castiel reminded her that he had to be home tomorrow afternoon to pick up Claire from Jody's home.

"Buzz kill," she accused him as they were about to enter the hotel's parking lot. "Okay, drop me here."

"Why?"

"I gotta buy some things for the trip. I'll be back in an hour or so."

Castiel watched her stride away down the street and wonder what she had in mind. He was starting to learn by now that Meg always had something in mind.

He called Claire once back in their room.

"Hey, loser," she greeted him. "Well, I guess I can't call you that anymore, huh?"

"Oh, you watched the race," Castiel said, surprised. "I didn't think you would care."

"Yeah, well... there were extenuating circumstances."

Castiel wasn't sure he wanted to know what she meant by that.

"How was your day?"

Claire parroted on about a funny thing her dog had done, a funny thing Alexis had said while they were doing their homework (Castiel took note of that. Alexis was a good influence on her, but he wasn't going to drop any hints that he was glad for it), and about something Castiel wasn't sure he'd heard right.

"Come again?"

"Nothing, it's stupid," she muttered. "Forget I said anything."

"Claire, don't be silly. Of course Meg and I would love to teach you how to ride."

"Oh, there's a Meg and you now?" she asked. Castiel wasn't sure what she meant, so he waited for her to elaborate. "I saw the picture of you two on the horse. You seemed pretty... close."

"Oh." Castiel rubbed his eyes. "No, there's no... we were just happy to have won, that's all."

The door clicked open and Meg made her entry. She had a bag of groceries in one hand and a pair of tall wineglasses on the other. She pulled a bottle of champagne from the bag and turned to him with a playful smirk in her lips. The first two buttons of her blouse were undone.

"Whatever you say, crushes-on-the-boss," Claire teased him. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, will be there in the... afternoon," Castiel said, wanting to prolong the conversation, even though Claire had already ended the call. "Uh... goodbye."

Meg opened the champagne and poured it into the two glasses. The golden liquid sparkled and foamed at the top.

"We always drank champagne whenever we won a race," she explained, turning towards him. "Well, we drank a lot more than that, but we started with champagne. Dad let me have a glass when I was fifteen after a victory of _Satrina_. As far as he knew, it was my first drink."

Castiel wasn't sure why he was so nervous all of the sudden. Except that his eyes kept travelling to Meg's exposed collarbone, and they were all alone, and they would have to sleep on the same bed again, and they were drinking champagne.

He should put a stop to all the thoughts that were raging through his head. Meg had only been nice that day because they had won. As soon as they went back to the ranch, she would turn again into the nagging boss that drove him insane at every turn and demanded impossible results from him.

Except they weren’t impossible. He didn’t think _Morningstar_ was ready, but they had won that day. Maybe that was motive enough for celebration.

He grabbed the glass Meg offered him and clanked it against hers.

“Were did you get these?”

“The hotel lent them to me,” she explained, shrugging. “We should avoid breaking them.”

“Yes, that’s probably for the best,” Castiel agreed, but he had to smile. If Meg wanted to drink champagne, she was going to get champagne and glasses. No matter what it was, Meg had a way of seemingly always getting away with hers.

“What?” she asked, crooking an eyebrow. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking how far we’ve come. Since that first time you threatened to fire me…”

“Thankfully you didn’t take it personally,” she chuckled.

“How was I supposed not to take it personally?” he asked, frowning. “My livelihood depends on your mood.”

Meg chuckled again and emptied half the glass in one gulp.

“I know,” she said. She was still smirking, but she sounded a lot more serious. “I’m trying. Don’t I get credit for that?”

Castiel turned around to leave his glass on the night table. He needed to avoid her gaze for a couple of seconds. He had learned how to deal with sulky and angry Meg, he even had learned to appreciate happy and friendly Meg. This self-aware Meg, he wasn’t sure how to deal with.

“I guess,” he said in the end, still not looking at her. “I just have no idea what to do with you, Meg.”

When he turned around, she was entirely too close for comfort, looking up at him with those deep brown eyes that sent shivers down his spine when they caught him unaware.

“I’m pretty easy to please,” she commented, her voice dropping to a raspy whisper.

Castiel swallowed, suddenly hyperaware of the heat radiating from her body.

“We should… go to bed,” he muttered pathetically.

“Yes, we should.”

They didn’t move. Meg’s lips were parted slightly, like a breath had been caught in them, like they were waiting for a kiss. Castiel had no business thinking like that. Those were dangerous thoughts to be having about his boss. She was his boss. Work place relationships didn’t work for the best. He had to think about Claire, he had to think how all of this could affect her…

Meg stood on the tip of her toes and Castiel stopped thinking about anything at all. Her mouth tasted like alcohol and lip gloss and the texture of her hair underneath his fingertips was just as soft as he had imagined it. The curve of her breasts against his chest and her legs tangling with his suddenly made every single one of his nerves stand to attention.

They shouldn’t be doing that. It wasn’t a good idea. He should stop it, he thought, as he put his arms around her waist and held her even tighter against him. He should put an end to it right then and apologize and pretend it didn’t happen or…

The stumbled together on the bed, a mess of covers and mouths and hands everywhere. Castiel broke the kiss, panting for air and looked down at Meg. Her face was flushed and her black hair spread on the pillow. Two more buttons of her blouse had come undone (had he done that?) and now her black lace bra was exposed for him. Her hands travelled down and her fingers hooked on the waistline of his jeans to pull him down to her and nibble his lower lip.

And by then, Castiel knew it was too late to stop anything. Meg always got what she wanted.


	13. Unprofessional

He woke again to an empty bed. The sheets were tangled on his legs and the covers had somehow ended up on the floor. Their clothes were spread all over the floor and his muscles ached as if he’d just run a marathon. He didn’t have to look to know he had a hickey on his shoulder. He hadn’t been prepared for Meg’s eagerness and ferocity, though knowing her, he should have known she made love like it was a competence, like she had something to prove.

And though he couldn’t deny it had been… oh, God, it had been incredible.

Castiel covered his eyes with his arm and groaned at himself. He wasn’t sure if it hadn’t been that good or if he felt it like that because it had been so long since the last time he had sex, but it didn’t matter. He had enjoyed every second of it. That somehow made everything worse, because now he knew there’d be a part of him that just would not stop thinking about it.

He had no idea what he would tell Meg when she came out of the bathroom and what he was going to address the fact they were going to spend the entire day confined in a car. Together. That was plenty of time to either drown in some very uncomfortable silence or have a conversation about the previous night. Castiel wasn’t sure which option was less mortifying and the only reason he didn’t consider the third one (jumping from the moving car to a hopefully quick death) was because Claire needed him alive.

The water stopped and Castiel sat up, still not sure what to expect. Meg walked out wrapped in a towel and looked at him with a crooked eyebrow.

“You’re still in bed? We should get going if we want to be back some time before midnight, you know?”

“Right,” Castiel muttered awkwardly. He kicked the sheets aside but still hesitated to get up. His boxers were somewhere on the floor, but he didn’t want to waste any time looking for them. He also didn’t want to parade butt naked in front of Meg, but then again, it didn’t seem like there was much of a choice.

“That ship has sailed, Castiel,” she said, when she sensed his hesitation. “I already saw everything.”

Castiel still moved as quickly as he could in the bathroom’s direction. The hot water over his head did help to clear his thoughts at the very least. They were both adults. There was no reason for shame. They could absolutely have a serious conversation about it without it being humiliating, right?

Meg didn’t seem to be interested in having any conversation at all. When he came out, she was gone, along with her clothes, the glasses and the bottle of champagne. The only thing left was a post it note in the television screen, with just a few words and a letter hastily scribbled: “Checking us out before breakfast. Hurry – M.”

Castiel did, because he wasn’t sure Meg wouldn’t take the car and leave him behind to find a bus back to Northeast Haven.

Meg was halfway into her cup of tea and gluten toasts by the time he came down. Despite her predictions, it was still pretty early, so the hotel’s restaurant was mostly empty and the waitress approached him even before he could finish sitting down.

“A cup of coffee and croissants, please,” he requested, before turning his attention entirely to Meg.

She didn’t seem angry. She also didn’t have the same happy energy that had moved her the previous day. In fact, it seemed like she was feeling nothing at all, if her deadpan expression and cold silence were anything to go by. He opened his mouth, but he realized he had no idea how to even begin, so he closed it again. They ate without exchanging a word. She finished first and he was almost expecting her to bolt out of the restaurant without waiting for him, but to Meg’s credit, she stayed right where she was, folding and twisting the paper napkins and watching the other people in the restaurant until Castiel had eaten the last bit of croissant.

“Ready?” she asked.

They paid, because technically they weren’t guests anymore, and Castiel followed her into the parking lot like it was the most normal morning in the world. And perhaps it was, but he was just on edge because another thought had occurred to him: what if she was waiting until they were alone to rip him a new one, to start screaming at and say…? He didn’t know. Just… find some way to blame him for it and be angry about it.

But Meg remained perfectly quiet while she adjusted her seat belt and they entered Louisville’s heavy traffic. She kept her eyes fixed on the window and didn’t protest when Castiel turned on the radio to break the uncomfortable silence. Well, if she wasn’t going to say anything, then he wasn’t either.

He lasted about thirty minutes.

“We’re just not going to talk about this, are we?”

Slowly, Meg turned her face towards him.

“Talk about…?”

“You and me,” he clarified, growing irritated by the second. Was she really going to pretend nothing had happened? “Last night, we… well… you know!”

“Yeah,” she muttered and looked away again. “Don’t overthink it, Castiel. It was just sex.”

“Just sex?”

“Good sex?” she suggested. “I’m not sure what you want me to say here.”

Castiel huffed, frustrated, in no small part because he also didn’t know what he was expecting to come out from it.

“I’m not fishing for compliments, I just…” He stopped, breathed in deeply and sped down the road that would lead them out of Kentucky. He wished they could leave the topic of conversation back there as well. “I’m trying to wrap around my head about why it happened.”

“Okay, you let me know how that goes,” Meg said. She shifted on her seat as if she was going to settle down to take a nap, but Castiel wasn’t about to give up. If he had to deal with the awkwardness of it all, then she had to as well.

“Did you plan it?” he asked, because it had been undoubtedly Meg who had started it.

She let out a bitter chuckle and looked at him again.

“Yeah, of course I planned it,” she said wryly. “That’s why I had the foresight to buy condoms instead of having unprotected sex like an idiot.”

Oh, shit, he hadn’t even thought about that part. He turned to look at her and his worry must have shown in his face, because she shook her head.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll just take a morning after pill and spend tomorrow puking my guts out. It’s what I deserve.”

“Are those one hundred percent effective?” Castiel asked, dread growing in his stomach at the mere idea of having to explain to Claire that he had knocked Meg up.

“They’d never failed me before.” She shrugged. “And if they do, it’s nothing a quick trip to the city can’t fix.”

“How can you be so calm about all this?!”

“Because it’s not a big deal,” Meg replied. “We were both in our right mind, we both wanted it. What is the problem?”

The problem was that it had felt like more than just that. The problem was that he had been wanting it for longer than he was willing to admit and trying not to think about how right Claire was when he teased him with him having a crush on Meg. She was mercurial and unpredictable and it drove him insane to work with her every day, but he also couldn’t stop thinking about the way her laughter sounded and the way her face scrunched up when she was holding back tears while she told him something difficult. And now he wouldn’t stop thinking about the way her body arched underneath him when she climaxed and the way she moaned and muttered his name in his ear.

It was torture that he’d had all of that for just one brief moment of absolute bliss, but he was starting to understand Meg had no interest in having a repeat.

“Look, I… we had a great day, okay? A great weekend. We told each other corny stories, we actually won the fucking race, we went to the museum and sightseeing, and… I guess I just got caught in the moment,” she told him. “It was unprofessional and I apologize if you think this is going to make our working relationship uncomfortable in any way. There.”

“I wasn’t looking for an apology, either.”

“Then what were you looking for, Castiel?” Meg puffed, impatient.

Castiel sighed and thought about explaining to her that the only thing more unprofessional about having sex with an employee was falling in love with the boss.

“I don’t know,” he said instead. “You’re right, it was unprofessional. It’s best we proceed as if nothing had happened.”

“Glad we settled that,” Meg said. She turned around and snuggled up against the seat’s back. “Wake me up in the next stop so we can shift.”

 

* * *

 

Claire actually came out of Alexis' house with a big smile on her face and threw her arms around Castiel's neck.

"Hey!" she said. "Welcome back!"

Castiel was about to ask her what was that all about when she realized Jody and Alexis were coming right behind her. She was probably trying to show herself being polite and all that in front of them. So he smiled as well.

"Did you have a good weekend?"

"It was great," Claire replied. And there was actual genuine enthusiasm in her voice, the kind Castiel hadn't heard in a while.

"Yeah, she was a delight to have around," Jody added. "She can come stay any time."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to abuse your hospitality..."

"Please, let's abuse her hospitality," Claire whined. "I don't know what I would have done if I had stayed alone in the cabin all weekend. I would have been climbing up the walls like some sort of creepy possessed girl."

Alexis snickered like it was a private joke. Castiel refrained from pointing out that would have been Claire's choice if it had been up to her.

"I brought a little something," he said, passing the gift bags to Jody and Alexis. "As a thanks. And another one for you."

"Oh, wow, you didn't have to," Jody said as she pulled out the scarf with Churchill Downs logo he had bought for her.

"Oh, my God, it's so cute!" Alexis exclaimed when she picked up her horse plushie from the bag. "Thank you so much, Mr. Novak."

"Yeah, cute," Claire said holding hers up as if she wasn't sure what to do with it. Her voice was coated with the more familiar sarcasm. Castiel had the impression he should have gone the safe route and got scarves for everybody.

"Do you want to stay for tea?" Jody offered. "I'm sure Garth's bakery's still open..."

Castiel glanced in Meg's general direction only to discover she was barely holding it together, leaning on the car and biting the inside of her cheek not to scream. After they had switched at noon, Meg hadn't woken him up after they were already entering Northeast Haven, probably to avoid more awkward conversations. She looked just as exhausted as he felt.

"No, thanks. Maybe another time."

Claire gave Alexis a quick hug and whistled for her dog. _Bilbo_ came running, barking and wagging his tail and jumped at Castiel, slobbering all over his shirt and pants.

"Yes, yes... I'm glad to see you too," Castiel said, opening the car's door to coax him inside. _Bilbo_ seemed more interested in having them catch him until Claire raised her horse plushie.

"Hey, _Bilbo_ , catch!" she ordered as she threw it inside the back seat. _Bilbo_ jumped inside and bit the plushie, shaking it with gusto as if that was the funniest game he'd ever played.

"That's not a chew... it wasn't meant to be a chew toy," Castiel cringed. Definitely, he was going to get hats or scarves for everybody next time, he decided as Claire slid besides her dog and closed the door.

"Goodbye, Mrs. Mills. Thank you again."

"See you around, Cas," Jody added. He thought that was going to be all, but then Jody turned around and called: "Masters."

If Meg was shocked Jody was addressing her directly she did her best to hide it.

"Sheriff?"

"Congrats on your win."

That threw her off. Almost as if she didn't expect anyone but herself and maybe Castiel to be glad about her victory.

"Thanks. It was... it was a team effort," she stuttered. Immediately after, she got inside of the car without even saying her goodbyes.

Castiel tried the best he could to hide his surprise. She hadn't been flustered over the fact they'd had casual sex, but this made her uncomfortable?

"Stop staring at me like that," she groaned while they drove back to the ranch.

"I'm not staring at you," Castiel said, moving his head to fix his eyes on the window.

"You were staring at me," Meg accused him. "You saw him staring, right?"

Claire, who had been too busy trying to get _Bilbo_ to give the horse plushie back, only looked at them very confused for five seconds before she asked the most embarrassing thing she could possibly unknowing ask:

"Is there something I should know?"

"Like what?" Meg asked, because she was very good at lying.

"No, I don't think so, why?" Castiel muttered, because he was terrible at lying.

"Okay," Claire asked and finally pulled the toy from her dog's mouth. "Forget I asked."

 

* * *

 

Castiel never thought he'd be glad to see the interior of their cabin again, but he was so immensely relieved to finally park the car besides it and step outside he almost forgot for a second that wasn't really home. Not just yet, anyway.

Claire did her best to remind her.

"Oh, yay, and we're back to slow Internet and limited hot water," she sighed. "Home sweet home."

"It's good to be back," Meg said, either not noticing or completely disregarding Claire's sarcasm. She stretched her arms over her head and yawned. "Well, _Morningstar_ won't be here until late tomorrow, so I guess we're allowed to oversleep."

"You? Oversleeping?" Castiel squinted at her. "Isn't that one of the signs of the Apocalypse?"

"Very funny." She rolled her eyes at him. "Take care, kid. See you tomorrow, Novak."

And she strode away like she didn't have a care in the world. She was undoubtedly much better than him at pretending nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

"What do you think we have a nice quick dinner?" Castiel suggested as he and Claire walked into the cabin.

"Right, because after three days of eating Jody's homemade meals, that's exactly what I missed: one of your microwave dinners."

Castiel bit his lips. Perhaps he should go to the main house. Andrea always had a homemade dinner ready that she would love to share with them and...

"Hey, I'm just joking," Claire said when she saw the look on his face. "Honestly, I don't mind. Let's microwave that ramen and you can tell me about all the horses you saw, okay?"

"Very well," Castiel said. "I do have a treat for you, though. Been saving it for an especial occasion."

He took the box out of the fridge and proudly presented it to her.

"Hey, microwaved lasagna!" Claire laughed. "You must be really happy you won, huh?"

"Well, it was an unexpected pleasant surprise." He removed the plastic wrap of the frozen rectangle of pasta that would turn into their dinner once heated. "But this is to celebrate something else: you taking an interest in something."

Claire looked slightly offended.

"I'm interested in plenty of things!" she replied angrily. "The fact that you don't know what they are..."

"Well, an interest in something we can share, then," Castiel corrected himself as he pushed the lasagna inside the microwave. "It's been a while since we did something together. Forgive me for being happy about it."

Claire puffed and rolled her eyes at him as she leaned against the kitchen's counter.

"Don't flatter yourself," she said. "I only want to learn to ride because I lied to Alexis that I could."

Immediately she went red and looked away to avoid Castiel's eyes.

"What? Like you've never said anything stupid to impress a girl!" she shouted, defensively.

Castiel chuckled to himself. He suspected it, but he was glad that Claire trusted him enough to tell him about the girl she liked.

"Oh, I've done plenty of stupid things for girls," he admitted. "Although nothing will ever top the fact your father grabbed me and a bunch of our college friends to serenade your mother at her dorm."

"Oh, my God." Claire cringed but she laughed anyway. "They loved telling that story."

"Perhaps because it worked out," Castiel pointed out, leaning against the counter next to her. "They ended up together."

Claire's face went a little somber and he opened his mouth to change the topic – perhaps to make a joke about the lasagna or the fact _Bilbo_ was snuggling in the couch with the horse plushie. But Claire beat him to the punch:

"Why it never worked out for you?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Why you never got married?" she clarified. "I mean, you're not such a bad guy. A little clueless, kind of a dork, but..."

"Thanks," Castiel said through gritted teeth. But it was a legitimate question. "I guess... I fall in love too fast. I don't like to do the whole taking it easy and seeing where it goes. If I fall in love with someone, I want it to be... deep. Real. And some people aren’t ready for that at the same time I am…"

His voice trailed off. He’d just had a flash of the way Meg’s cheeks had flushed when he pushed into her and that was a dangerous and inadequate train of thought to follow in the presence of his teenage niece. He hid his embarrassment by turning around and checking on the lasagna. Claire stifled a chuckle.

“Well, no wonder girls run away from you like you were the plague,” she commented. “If you want them to know whether they want to marry you or not the second they meet you…”

“That’s not what I said,” Castiel protested, but he knew it was useless. His niece had already decided he was a hopeless romantic (which was true, yeah) and was going to tease him forever about it. It was best if he started getting used to his destiny already. He pulled the lasagna out of the microwave. “Let’s just eat.”

“Good idea.”

 

* * *

 

Meg’s window was lit up with a faint, golden glow. That was unusual. It wasn’t like Castiel looked up her window every night or something like that. But he did know she usually went to sleep early and woke up with the sun, so the fact she was still awake was… worrying. Of course, it was none of his business why she was awake, but…

Her silhouette appeared on the window and Castiel’s first instinct was to dodge and hide. She couldn’t have seen him unless she looked directly at the cabin, and even then, perhaps she was too far away to notice him staring. He still turned off his night lamp, feeling his stomach churn with guilt for spying on her.

Although, could it be really called spying if she didn’t really do anything? She just opened the window and lifted up her head towards the starry sky. She was clad in a black nightgown, obviously intending to go to bed soon, so it wasn’t like he was peeping on her undressing (that had happened one time and it had been an accident) or infringing her privacy in any other way. He just… saw her face, pale as the moon, looking up at the sky. She closed her eyes for a second, almost as if she was breathing in the night air, her lips pursed almost in the shape of a kiss.

Castiel stayed very still and very quiet the entire time. He remained there until Meg’s shoulders slumped and she retreated back into the room, without closing the window. He kept looking in her direction until the light went off and when he laid down in his bed, he hugged his pillow, wishing it was her warmth body again.

 

* * *

 

The following day was… strange.

He waited around the stables for Meg to show up (the fact _Morningstar_ wasn’t there yet didn’t mean they couldn’t train with _Persephone_ ’s foal), but after half an hour, the only person who showed up was Benny.

“She’s sick, brotha’,” he informed him. “Vomiting all over the place, shaking. She didn’t sleep a wink last night. Not a pretty picture. Did she eat a lot when you won?”

“Well… a bit, yeah,” Castiel muttered. He didn’t like lying to Benny, even though it wasn’t really a lie. But he knew Meg would kill him if he told the real reason she was in such a state.

“She does that when she’s in a celebratory mood,” Benny sighed, shrugging as if he wasn’t really expecting any different. “Anyway, I don’t think I’ve congratulated you, have I?”

“Thank you, I…” Castiel started, but before he could finish, Benny wrapped his arms around him and pulled him for a tight hug, patting him in the back so hard it was like he was trying to get Castiel to spit something stuck in his throat.

“You did great, man,” he said, after letting go of Castiel. “Andrea and I thought that goddamn horse was going to go off the track or bite all the other horses or something like that. But you actually managed to get him to compete fair and square. Go figure.”

“Meg did her part too,” Castiel said, embarrassed at all those congratulations. “You know, a horse’s only as good as their jockey.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Benny nodded. “Guess you both deserved to celebrate, huh?”

He winked at Castiel. Castiel wasn’t sure, but he had the impression Benny was trying to transmit something else. Something he didn’t know he was comfortable with Benny just… knowing. So he changed the topic.

“Since Meg is… indisposed, what should we do…?”

“I thought we might take it easy today,” Benny said. “I’m just gonna let the horses out for a while, let them have some fun before the cold hits. You don’t have to be here for that. Go to the town, have some beers. Enjoy the peace while it lasts, because the second Meg feels better, she’s going to start thinking about the next race.”

Castiel had no doubt in his mind it was going to be exactly like that. He tried to offer his help again, but Benny rebuffed him. And so, with Claire already in school, Castiel found himself with something ahead he hadn’t expected: a free day. He considered going back to the cabin and read something or watch TV, but the very thought depressed him the second it crossed his mind. So he grabbed his car keys and left the ranch.

It was a very pleasant autumn morning, with the sun shining down on the road and the trees that surrounded just barely beginning to yellow. He rolled the windows down and enjoyed the breeze going through his hair. For a second, he forgot about everything: his complicated feelings for Meg, his near-constant worry about Claire, the fact he was working on what was basically a powder keg that could go broke at any second and leave him jobless. For one glorious ride, it was only him and the road and the perspective of a cold beer at Ellen Harvelle’s Roadhouse.

It was still early on a Monday morning, so he wasn’t surprised to see the town streets were practically empty, except for a couple of persons going about their business and some kids too young to go to school in the playground. He parked the car near the Roadhouse’s door and sauntered inside calmly. Just like the town, it was almost empty except for a handful of people, mostly old men who were probably retired and made it into a routine to gather there every morning. Bobby spotted him and raised his bottle at him to greet him. Castiel smiled, but chose a place at the counter. He was content with his loneliness right at that very moment.

The stern looking woman behind the counter shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye.

“You Novak, right?” she asked.

“That’d be me, yes,” Castiel said. In a small town like that, he couldn’t expect people not to know who he was.

“Jody said your horse won a race this weekend,” the woman kept commenting as she rubbed a glass of whiskey clean.

“It wasn’t actually my horse…” Castiel tried to argue, but he guessed it made no real difference to her. “Yes, we won the race.”

The woman put down the glass with a little smirk and came over to introduce herself as Ellen Harvelle in the flesh.

“Next time, let me know when you’re running,” she told him. “We used to have a party here every time a Morningstar horse competed. We gathered around, we made bets. Good times. What’s your poison?”

“Just a beer, thanks,” Castiel said, frowning. “I thought… well, just that the Masters weren’t very popular around the town…”

“They aren’t for most folks since old Azazel passed,” Ellen explained. She placed the beer in front of Castiel and opened it with an expert flicker of her wrist. “But you know, little town like this, there’s very little chances for actual entertainment.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Castiel promised.

Ellen smirked at him and left him to his beer. Castiel hadn’t even taken a sip from it when a short, stout man moved the chair by his side and plopped down on it.

“Ellen, darling,” he called her with a thick Scottish accent. “Give me a double, neat, will you?”

Castiel stared at him. He wore a black three piece suit with a red flower in the lapel and he stuck out like a sore thumb around the bar, where most people were wearing jeans and boots. Not only that, but despite his height, he sat with his chin up and his shoulders squared, with an air of strange dignity, as if he was some sort of royalty gracious enough to bless the plebs with his presence. When he noticed Castiel looking at him, he offered a sleazy grin.

“So, couldn’t help but to overhear,” he said. “You’re the man of the hour, huh? Novak, was it?”

“That’s me,” Castiel said even though, for reasons that escaped him, he didn’t feel entirely comfortable telling his name to that short strange man. He seemed to sense he was getting nowhere with that line of interrogation, so once Ellen served him his whiskey, he turned his body completely towards him.

“Where are my manners? Of course, since you’re new to town, you wouldn’t know who I am,” he commented. “Name’s Fergus Crowley. Pleased to meet you.”

“Crowley,” Castiel repeated. It took him a few seconds to understand why that rang a bell. “You own the land next to Meg’s ranch.”

“I own the land behind it, too, and the one in front across the road,” Crowley clarified, still smiling like he was very proud of himself. “I’m the only neighbor you have. As such, you may imagine dear Meg and I are very well acquainted with each other.”

Castiel remembered Benny had talked about this man in not very flattering terms and mentioned that Meg hated him. He didn’t say anything, waiting for Crowley to state the reason he had come talk to him. Crowley took a sip from his whiskey and, very slowly, set it back down on the counter. Ellen pushed a coaster towards him, but turned his back on them and continued cleaning glasses and putting bottles in their place.

“So, how do you like working for her?” Crowley continued asking, still in that friendly conversational tone that didn’t convince Castiel entirely.

“Meg? She is… she is very dedicated,” he said, because he wasn’t going to admit that she was a pain in the ass in front of anybody else. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he owed loyalty to her or something of the sorts. They worked together and they’d had… a fling that, granted, had been two days before and therefore, it was still very fresh in Castiel’s mind. Other than that…

“I know, but that is not what I asked,” Crowley pointed out. “I asked, how do you like it?”

Castiel observed the man carefully. He turned his body towards him very slowly and fixed his eyes on him.

“Is there any particular reason you approached me, Mr. Crowley?”

Crowley let out a very unsettling laugh and took another sip from his drink.

“No sense in beating around the bush with you, huh?” he commented. “I like you. Directness is a virtue not many people can appreciate.”

“And one you lack,” Castiel added. It was probably rude, but Crowley raised his whiskey and shrugged, almost like an admission of guilt.

“You’ll have to forgive me. I’m used to dealing with clients who prefer to make some friendly conversation before getting to the point,” he said. “But since you asked so kindly, I’ll tell you: it is not secret I am interested in buying the Morningstar ranch. I have made Meg repeated offerings way above the actual value of the property but, alas, she has refused every single one.”

“It is her father and grandfather’s legacy,” Castiel pointed out. “She’s very attached to it.”

“Attached to the point of foolishness, one would say,” Crowley replied. “Are you aware of the… financial difficulties that the ranch is suffering?”

“I am aware,” Castiel admitted. “Of course, Meg, as my boss, doesn’t see it fit to discuss such details with me.”

“As it should be,” Crowley approved. He finished his whiskey and grinned in Ellen’s direction, motioning for her to fill it again. Castiel was pretty certain she was hanging on their every word, but he still waited until she moved away to ask:

“And all of this concerns me, how?”

Crowley took his time to reply, almost as if he was considering how to put it a way that Castiel’s little brain could understand it.

“Well, to me, I guess, it doesn’t really matter if Morningstar goes into bankruptcy,” he commented, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. “To be honest with you, that would be an ideal scenario, since then I could acquire for peanuts. You, however,” he continued, looking at Castiel over the edge of his glass, “you are a simple man who needs his job to survive, are you not?”

“I…”

“And it would be very difficult to uproot your niece, again, during her senior year of high school,” Crowley continued. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Small town, everybody talks. She sounds like a very lively girl. Does she have any prospect colleges she’s looking into? Of course, they are all so very expensive these days.”

He grinned at Castiel. He looked so satisfied Castiel barely could restrain himself from smacking him. It was one thing if he wanted to try and cajole Castiel into whatever scheme he was planning, but the fact he even dared to use Claire as a bargaining chip was beyond insulting.

“That could happen,” Castiel admitted, very slowly. “But if I do my job correctly, and we keep winning as we did this weekend, I don’t think that should worry me too much.”

Crowley shifted in his seat a little bit and his smile faltered a little bit. It was as if Castiel had said something he wasn’t very happy to hear, but he couldn’t show it.

“Such confidence,” he said. “You truly do seem like a good partner for dear Meg.”

Castiel hoped his face didn’t betray what he thought of that affirmation. Crowley took out his wallet from his pocket and left a couple of bills over the counter, next to his empty glass.

“You and Meg can keep clinging to that money sucking black hole if you wish,” he said, the despise he felt seeping in his tone, right underneath his feigned cordiality. “But I believe you are a smarter man than that, Mr. Novak. So, here.” He extracted a business card and held it out for Castiel. When the other man showed no interest in it, Crowley simply left it with the bills as if it was no big deal. “I await to hear from you.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Castiel replied, with a smile that was almost a snarl.

Crowley shrugged, got up from his seat and finally left. The feeling of sleaziness that surrounded him, however, stayed, permeating the air and ruining what up until that point had been a perfectly pleasant morning.

“You shouldn’t have been so dismissive of Crowley, boy,” Ellen commented as she picked up the bills and the glass. “He’s a rancorous son of a bitch. He won’t forget it.”

“I have no interest in associating myself with him,” Castiel replied. “So I don’t really mind what he thinks about me.”

Ellen’s lips tightened, as if she was thinking of a way to tell him something difficult. She put another beer on the counter, even though Castiel hadn’t even drunk half of his.

“I know Crowley seems like he’s… economical with the truth,” she admitted. “But he’s a businessman and he’ll be the first to admit that. When he came here, talking about urban development and new settlements, some people weren’t very happy about it, but he made them come around to see things his way.”

“And what way is that?”

“New developments mean new jobs, it means fresh blood coming to live here,” Ellen explained. “So folks started selling him the land and now he basically owns pretty much the entire area outside of the town. The only ones who won’t sell are the Masters.”

“And let me guess, people don’t appreciate them for it,” Castiel said.

“Nobody liked those brats before all of this,” Ellen admitted. “And, now they’re denying the community of a boost that we need so Northeast Haven can finally be on the map because they’re just stubborn. So yeah, you shouldn’t be surprised they’re not exactly popular around these parts.”

Castiel could understand that. It still didn’t seem fair that Meg had to get rid of her home for it.

“Can’t they just build around Morningstar?”

“Don’t you think they would’ve if they could?” Ellen snorted. “Some of the construction has to go through Meg’s backyard, so no, she won’t let that happen. And they’ve been in that lockdown for like two years now.”

Two years. That had been the time it’d taken for Meg’s little family to disintegrate and for her name to earn a reputation as a cheater on the tracks. No wonder she associated all those disgraces with Crowley, and no wonder she had a poor opinion of him.

Castiel finished his beer and stood up.

“Thank you, Ellen.”

“Don’t leave crap over my counter,” she snapped.

Castiel absentmindedly grabbed the business card and slid it inside of his pocket.


	14. Loyalty

There were things Castiel didn’t expect to ever see and then there was Claire trying to find her way to the back of a horse.

“You just have to try and put your foot on…”

“I can do it,” Claire groaned.

She had been attempting to do it for the past fifteen minutes, but she still hadn’t managed to get enough impulse to climb on _Satrina_ ’s back. Or she hesitated at the last moment and flailed to the ground pathetically. Castiel had offered her to show her how or place her hands underneath her to five her extra impulse, but if there was one thing that Claire was, it was stubborn. She stood on the ground, looking at _Satrina_ as if it was the mare’s fault that she couldn’t keep her balance.

“Why can’t I ride _Leggers_?”

“Because he’s still too young and he’s learning, and both of you being nervous won’t be good for him,” Castiel replied. He had the feeling he had repeated those same reasons at least fifteen times. “And his name isn’t _Leggers_.”

Meg popped her head outside of the stables with a bucket in her hand. She had just finished _Morningstar_ and _Persephone_ ’s grooming and was coming to check why was it that Castiel had asked her to keep _Satrina_ and _Zeus_ outside for a little longer.

“You’re never going to get up like that,” she said, after watching in silence how Claire failed once again. “You have to do it in one sweep.”

“Yeah, well,” Claire muttered. Her face was red. It was hard to tell whether it was out of embarrassment or because of the effort she had been making. “Maybe I’m just too short for this horse.”

“And the grapes aren’t ripe yet anyway,” Meg replied. “Come on, girl. If I can ride them, you can ride them.”

Claire looked at her with distrust. Meg tower barely a few inches over her and it was true she looked very tiny when she mounted the monster that was _Morningstar_. But she still managed to get on him without any help and now she was almost challenging Claire to give her a reason not to do the same.

“Fine,” Claire muttered. She put her hands on the saddle again… and _Satrina_ shifted a little on her hooves. Claire stepped back almost immediately. “Yeah, I don’t think she wants me to ride her…”

“Oh, she’s just messing with you,” Meg insisted. “Don’t worry about her. She’s old, she’s run her races. She can’t even run anymore. So, try again.”

Claire gritted her teeth, but she clung onto the saddle one more time.

“Now put your foot on the stirrup,” Meg instructed her. “And just prop yourself up.”

Claire grimaced, but she obeyed. She hanged onto it for a little too long and Castiel was sure she was going to lose her grip again or that _Satrina_ was going to move. He was about to move to catch her when Claire threw her other leg up and before she even knew it, she was properly settled on _Satrina_ ’s back. The mare shifted her weight on the hooves.

“Okay,” Claire said, grabbing the reins, stiffly. “Okay, that wasn’t so difficult. Is that the lesson for today?”

“Not quite.” Castiel bit back his smile and climbed onto _Zeus_. “Now you have to ride her. We’re just going to go to the streak and back,” he added when Claire put a face of horror. “Very slowly, very calmly. So you can get used to it.”

“Sure,” Claire muttered. She still looked pretty lost when she turned her head towards Meg. “You’re not coming?”

Meg blinked at her and opened her lips a little, as if she wasn’t sure what to answer to that. She turned her head towards Castiel, as if she was expecting him to answer for her.

“I… I already locked the others in the stable,” she pointed out.

“You can ride with me,” Castiel offered.

He didn’t know why he did that. His tongue had moved faster than his mind. Of course, Meg didn’t want to come with them and was just looking for a polite excuse. She had no reason to come with them. He was the one teaching Claire to ride and Meg was just lending them the horses as a favor and that was as much of it as he could expect her to do for them…

“Guess I could,” Meg said. She stepped forwards and patted _Zeus_ on the nose. “You’re strong enough to take the both of us, aren’t you?”

_Zeus_ puffed in response, as if he thought Meg was insulting him just by asking it. Meg smirked at him and walked around him. She didn’t wait for Castiel’s hand and a second later, she was sat behind him as if that had been the plan from the beginning. Castiel tried to ignore her hands on his shoulders and the warmth of her chest against his back.

“Okay, so… use your heels to tell her to start,” he instructed Claire. “Just a gentle tap. She’ll go slowly at first.”

Claire looked very stiff and very nervous on her chair. She did as Castiel instructed and let out a whimper when _Satrina_ actually started walking. Castiel put _Zeus_ to pace by their side and gave her a few short recommendations.

“Don’t hold the reins so tight, you only want to do that when you’re ready to stop. Pull them to one side or to the other when you want her to change directions. Sit back against it or your lower back is going to kill you tomorrow.”

“This looks so much easier when Meg does it,” Claire complained.

“That’s because I’m so great I make anything look easy,” Meg bragged. “Relax your shoulders, girl. If you fall down, the ground will catch you.”

“Oh, I can’t imagine why I would ever be tense,” Claire said. The fact she had managed to muster enough sarcasm for that answer indicated Castiel she was starting to get used to it.

“Come on, at this speed? You’ll maybe get a bruise.” Meg chuckled. “No, real injuries happen when you’re going at forty miles per hour and lose your footing. That’s when you have a split second to decide which one of your limbs you can live without for a month.”

“Or protect your neck,” Castiel added. “Or your spine…”

“You guys actually aren’t helping,” Claire commented. But apparently, she couldn’t shake the topic from her mind, because her next question was: “What’s the worse fall you’ve had?”

“The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, 2010. An asshole mistook the track and came way too close behind me. Our horses were going to crash, so I had to pull mine aside before the other bit us in the ass. I manage to avoid my horse slipping and hurting himself, but I flew over and almost crash on the judge’s table. It was a riot.” Meg laughed out loud, even though Castiel and Claire were pretty sure they had a different definition of what was fun or not. “Broke my leg in three parts and I had to wear a cast up to my freaking hip for almost two months. I thought I was going to go insane.”

Castiel could imagine it. Meg with a doctor-mandated time of inactivity sounded like a recipe for disaster.

“At least the other idiot was disqualified.”

“Wow,” Claire muttered. “And what about you, Cas?”

“Well, I don’t remember ever having a bad fall like that,” he confessed. “But I did hurt my shoulder one time.”

Claire turned to look at him with interest and he could feel Meg shifting behind him to do the same thing.

“There was this group of children visiting the facilities,” he told them. “Mind you, they weren’t the children with behavioral or learning issues that we usually got. I swear I never had a problem with them. No, these children came from a private school, actually, and they wanted to see the horses. So I took out this gelding named _Carrots_ , after his favorite snack, for the children to pat him, give him snacks, ride on him for five minutes. That sort of thing.”

“Sounds like a nightmare,” Meg commented.

“It could be,” Castiel admitted. “The kids were taking turns to ride him and the teachers were calling them to the front by their last name. And I don’t know how, but one of them sneaked past them onto the track, tiptoed close to the horse and just… yanked his tail as hard as he could.”

“Oh, God, what a little jerk,” Meg said and Castiel couldn’t deny that had been exactly his thoughts when he’d had time to think about it.

“Even the nicest horse doesn’t like that,” he pointed out. “So _Carrots_ , who was so gentle most of the time, started bucking and jumping… with another boy still on his back. The kids and the teachers were also screaming and panicking. I yelled at him to let himself fall to the side and pulled _Carrots_ away to get him to calm down. Daphne – she was my boss and the owner of the riding center – had to come out of her office and help the teachers herd the children out.”

“That’s horrible,” Claire said, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe children like those existed. “But how did that get your arm dislocated?”

“Well, it turned out that when _Carrots_ started freaking out, I still had his reins in my hand,” Castiel explained. “He pulled very hard from them and at first I didn’t realize what was going on, except that my shoulder hurt, but I had to get the situation under control, so I paid no mind to it. It wasn’t until the children had left that Daphne drove me to the ER herself and we discovered what had happened.”

“Let me get this straight: you had your arm dislocated, and you refused to go to the doctor?” Meg asked.

“Did you want to go when you got your leg broken?”

“Touché,” she admitted.

Claire snorted out a laugh.

“Daphne probably had to knock him out and put him in the trunk to get him to go,” she commented.

“She threatened to,” Castiel admitted, with a smile.

“I like this Daphne just by her legend,” Meg said.

“Oh, she is a very headstrong woman,” Castiel nodded. “Turns out, that wasn’t the end of the story with this particular group of children. The following day a lawyer showed up at the riding center. He had been hired by the children’s parents to investigate the incident, because they wanted to sue us since their little ones could have got seriously injured. Daphne very kindly showed him the security tapes that proved it had been one of their precious ones that had caused the entire disturbance and kindly reminded him that we should be the ones suing the school since I had _actually_ got injured.”

“Oh, my God, I would have paid to see that,” Claire laughed. “There’s nothing more precious than humiliating rich assholes. No offense,” she added, her smile disappearing as she shot a very regretful look at Meg.

“None taken,” she replied. “As a former rich asshole, I can tell you with certainty that you’re absolutely right. But let me tell you about this girl at the boarding school…”

Claire snickered again. She apparently had forgotten she was having that conversation on top of a horse while riding it. She seemed more relaxed and happy, but Castiel wasn’t about to point that out in case it affected her. It was also an amazing thing that Meg’s hand had fallen from his shoulders to his waist and now they were resting on his thighs, though for an entirely different reason.

They told some other anecdotes about horses and horrible people until they reached the creek that separated Meg’s property from Crowley’s. Castiel suggested they dismounted and rested for a little while, but Claire shook her head.

“I’m not sure I can get up here again,” she argued. “So I’m just going to… make her walk around for a while I guess.”

“Very well,” Castiel said, smiling. “We’ll be right here should you need us.”

“Look at her go,” Meg commented. “She’s a natural.”

Claire did seem to have forgotten her previous apprehensions as she guided _Satrina_ along the creek. Castiel turned to answer Meg, but he noticed she was leaning against a tree, hugging herself with her arms. She hadn’t brought a coat, since that impromptu riding session hadn’t been in her plans and now that the sun was coming down, she was probably cold. Immediately, he took off his jacket and offered it to her.

“Did you honestly just do that?” Meg asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t want you to get sick twice in a week.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t really sick.”

“I… suspected it,” he said.

Was he blushing? He felt like he was blushing, but he still kept looking at Meg straight in the face and holding his jacket out to her. Meg held his gaze for a couple more seconds before stepping forwards. Their fingers graze when she took it and an electric current came down Castiel’s back. He watched Meg to try and tell if she had felt it too, but she had turned her head away while putting on the jacket. She looked even tinier than usual in it.

“So…” he started, awkwardly.

It was the first time they were alone together. Well, they had been working and training as usual, but that didn’t count since they mostly talked about the horses and Benny came to check up on them sometimes. But now he really had no idea how to start a conversation again, because goddammit, she was staring at him with those eyes of her and smirking and his mind was a mess once again.

“We should know next week if the Plan B worked,” she told him.

That wasn’t what Castiel was looking to hear because it reminded him that there was a very unromantic side to their entire… he hesitated to call it a relationship.

“Will you let me know?”

“Would you want to know?”

Castiel refused to answer that question. Meg had already announced in no uncertain terms that she had no plans of getting involved with him any further and the idea of things getting even more complicated was downright torture. So Castiel looked around trying to change the topic into anything other than that when Meg sank her hands in his jacket’s pocket and extracted a rectangular white card.

“What’s this?” she asked, frowning.

“Oh, that,” Castiel remembered. “I had the pleasure of meeting your neighbor. He seemed… shady.”

“I see,” Meg said, with a snicker that was completely joyless. “How much money did he offer you to spy on me?”

“There wasn’t a concrete sum stated,” Castiel confessed. “But I had the impression he was willing to go very high on his bid for my loyalty.”

Meg slowly raised her eyes at him.

“And why didn’t you take him up on his offer?”

Castiel stared at her, pretty certain it was one of her jokes and she would openly laugh in his face for believing she would even ask such a question. But the seconds passed and Meg kept staring at him, dead serious.

“Because my loyalty isn’t for sale, Meg,” he said, in the end.

Meg watched him closely at him for another second. Her smirk returned to her lips as she ripped Crowley’s business card in two and threw it at the creek with a contemptuous gesture. The water carried it away in a matter of seconds.

“There’s that, then,” she said, as if she was commenting on the weather. “I’m thinking we should do Champagne, the Juvenile Cup and Remsen. And then we take December off.”

“Are you asking me or are you telling me?”

“Since when do I ask you anything?”

Castiel reckoned she was right. He looked away to search for Claire when Meg surprised him by adding:

“But yes, I would like to hear what you think.”

Castiel watched her to make sure that she wasn’t joking this time either before saying:

“I believe that’s a good working schedule for us, yes,” he concluded.

“Good.”

“Best part is we won’t have to drive twelve hours for those races.”

“You’re never going to let that go, huh?”

It was Castiel’s turn to smirk and change the topic.

“Claire, get back! It’s getting late.”

“Okay!” Claire replied. She turned _Satrina_ around and made her trot back to where they were waiting next to Zeus. She seemed pretty pleased with herself. “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

“Don’t call it ‘til you’ve learned to race,” Meg replied, as she graciously climbed on her horse. Castiel knew it was his turn to ride on the back, so he didn’t even try to protest.

They headed back to the stable in a pleasant silence. Claire rode a few steps ahead of them, a lot more confident than a couple of hours before. Castiel tried to hold onto the saddle, but it was uncomfortable and terrible for his balance, so in the end, he put his hands on Meg’s waist just like she had done with him. He fully expected her to slap him away, but what she did instead was asking them if they’d like to stay for dinner in the main house.

“Andrea keeps cooking more food than we can eat,” she explained. “I’m sure she’s passive-aggressively trying to tell me something.”

“Sure, why not?” Claire said. “I can only live on school lunches and microwave ramen for so long.”

“You’re starving this girl,” Meg accused Castiel, looking at him over her shoulder, horrified. “I’m pretty sure that classifies as child cruelty.”

“Well, invite us to dinner more often and make sure she eats properly,” Castiel replied. “I come home late and I can’t cook every night. My boss is kind of a hardass.”

Meg’s laughter remained one of the most wonderful sounds in that peaceful autumn evening.

 

* * *

 

October sneaked up on them in the blink of an eye. Meg stood by his side on the stable one Saturday morning and quietly helped him saddle up _Morningstar_.

“So, that thing we were worried would happen?” she said in the most casual tone of voice.

Castiel was ashamed to admit it took him the entirety of twenty seconds of her staring intently at him until he understood what she was talking about.

“Oh,” he remembered. “Oh, yeah, that thing…”

“Didn’t happen,” Meg said, in the same tone. She proceeded to grab _Morningstar_ ’s saddle and walk into his cubicle to start readying him up for the day.

Castiel stared at her back for a while, trying to determine what the pressure in his chest was. He should be relieved by the news. Hell, he should be damn elated that their stupidity wouldn’t have any consequences beyond making moments like that utterly awkward.

And yet…

“I already booked our rooms for the Champagne Stakes,” she continued. “We’re going to be gone a weekend again. So, you should tell Claire to start asking Sheriff Mills to give her asylum at her home.”

“I was thinking.” Castiel cleared his throat. “Perhaps we could take Claire this time with us, if it’s not too much of a problem. She misses New York and probably…”

“I don’t mind!”

Castiel jolted and looked over his shoulder. Claire was standing inside _Persephone_ and her foal’s cubicle, with a brush and a bucket in her hand. He hadn’t noticed she was there and suddenly it was a relief that Meg hadn’t been more explicit in her announcement.

“I really don’t mind staying,” Claire repeated. “It’s… yeah. Alexis and I had so much fun last time…”

Castiel wasn’t sure he wanted to know exactly the nature of the fun she and Alexis had. If they were dating, Castiel worked on the assumption he would be the last to know.

“There you go, she doesn’t mind staying,” Meg said, as she adjusted Morningstar’s saddle. “So you shouldn’t worry too much about her. She’s growing up.”

Castiel sighed and hoped that comment didn’t give Claire any sort of weird ideas…

“Actually, Meg, I wanted to ask you something,” Claire said, completely obliterating that notion.

“Claire…” Castiel started, but his niece spoke faster than he could protest.

“Days are still pretty sunny and warm,” Claire said. “And I didn’t have anyone over during the summer… because I didn’t know anyone, basically, but now and I think it would be a shame if I couldn’t invite a couple of friends to the pool? You know, before it gets all dark and gloomy and rainy… it’s okay if you don’t want to.”

Meg was staring at her. It was hard to determine if she was impressed at Claire’s gall or offended by her insolence.

“When you say ‘a couple’, how many are we talking about exactly?” she asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“Literally just a couple,” Claire insisted. “Ben and Alexis. No one else, I swear.”

“Claire, don’t…” Castiel started, but Meg surprised him again by saying:

“Sure, kiddo. As long as you don’t make a mess. And keep in mind, Benny and Andrea will tell me if you make a mess.”

She climbed onto Morningstar with a fluid movement and guided him outside of the stable.

“Thank you!” Claire shouted in her wake.

Meg made a gesture with her hand to indicate she had heard her and sank her heels on Morningstar’s sides. The horse bolted away like a black blur and a second later, he and his rider were both out of reach.

Castiel turned a severe look at Claire.

“What?” she asked, with a shrug.

“Don’t you think maybe you could have asked me if you could invite people over?”

“Why? You’re not the owner of the house.” Claire shrugged. “Besides, you’re the one who keeps telling me I should be more social.”

It was hard to argue with that logic. So he turned his irritation into the one other person that had totally ran over his authority.

“What?” Meg asked when she noticed Castiel glaring at her when he finally reached her on top of _Zeus_.

“You shouldn’t have given her permission to have friends over,” he said.

“Why not?”

“’Cause she didn’t ask me if she could have friends over,” he explained. It was hard not to notice how she didn’t see the problem with what she did either. God helped him if Meg and Claire actually started getting along behind his back one day.

“Okay, but technically it’s not your house, so…”

Castiel clenched his jaw and Meg realized this was something she couldn’t tease her way out of.

“Why does it bother you? Aren’t you glad she’s making friends? Human friends, besides that stinking beast of hers.”

“ _Bilbo_ doesn’t stink. She bathes him every other week. We’re getting off subject,” Castiel groaned. How the hell did she always manage to distract him so easily? “The point is, she should have asked me because I’m her guardian and… Meg, this is serious. Stop laughing.”

Meg did very little to suppress her snicker, but after a while, she managed.

“I’m sorry. I just think it’s very cute that you care so much about her.”

Castiel tried to ignore the fact she had outright called him cute. It was really hard to focus when he was trying to figure out if Meg was flirting with him or just being her usual mocking self.

“Of course I care about her,” he muttered. “She’s my family.”

“In my experience, that doesn’t always equate to caring.”

There it was: that darkness right at the edge of her laughter. She always seemed like she had suffered far more than she was willing to let on and Castiel could recover bits and pieces from her story for the things she commented. He knew her grandfather had been controlling and authoritarian. He knew her mother had left and she and her brother had been shipped off to different boarding schools. He really couldn’t blame her for not having an elevated concept of what family entailed.

But that didn’t change anything. He sped _Zeus_ up and made him stand right in front of _Morningstar_ so Meg couldn’t avoid looking at him in the eye.

“I’m serious, Meg,” he said. “I’m Claire’s guardian. I have to at least have some sort of idea of what’s going on with her and… I need to think of her and how my actions affect her. The next time she comes to you with a request like this, I’m going to ask you to please defer to me.”

Meg smirked at him and for a moment, it looked like she was going to make another sarcastic comment. But Castiel kept looking at her, dead serious, so she had no choice but to click her tongue.

“Fine,” she said in the end. “I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s not like I have any interest in the kid anyway,” she added. “Why should I? She’s just an extension of a guy who works for me.”

Castiel didn’t know if she meant for that to be hurtful. It was a bit, anyway. After everything they had gone through, after him promising he was on her side against Crowley…

But a second later, Meg was smiling again and it was as if the moment for that sort of inquiry had passed by.

“Hey, I’ll race you,” she said. “To that oak over there and back.”

Castiel looked at the tree and sighed.

“There’s no way I’m going to win,” he sighed. _Morningstar_ was objectively a faster horse than _Zeus_ and Meg was a far better rider, used to reaching and maintaining that kind of velocity without a second thought.

“Oh? Are you scared?”

Well, now it was a matter of honor.

So of course Castiel sank his heels on _Zeus_ to get him to start running before Meg even was ready.

“Hey!” she screamed on her wake, hurrying _Morningstar_ after the two.

Even with his unfair advantage, he lost spectacularly. But as always, it was worth it just to hear Meg laughing out loud.


	15. Underlying Meaning

“Get out of town,” Ben muttered. “It’s even bigger up close!”

Claire felt strangely proud that he and Alexis were clearly so impressed. It was Friday right after school. Her uncle and Meg had left for the race that morning, so Claire had invited their friends to stay over until late that night before she and Alexis had to go back to Alexis’ home and go to bed like good girls. Of course, Ben was going to climb the window and they would all spend the night talking about inappropriate things and probably watching horror movies.

Nobody had to know about that part, though. Especially Sheriff Mills.

Alexis looked up at the house and whistled.

“And you say only five people live here?” she asked.

“Technically three,” Claire said, pointing at the cabin. “My uncle and I live over there.”

“Still, it’s too much space,” Alexis argued.

“The horses needed it to run.” Claire explained. “Hey, do you want to go to the back and check the pool?”

“That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”

It was stupid, the way they laughed all the way there, with _Bilbo_ barking and trotting at their heels. Despite the sun shining down on them, there was a cool autumn breeze blowing that made it far too cold to actually swim in it. That didn’t stop them from taking off their shoes, rolling their jeans up and sticking their feet in the clear water. Claire absentmindedly threw the horse plushie for _Bilbo_ to retrieve it while they kicked and moved the water as they talked.

“So apparently Krissy’s Halloween party is happening,” Alexis commented. “Are you going this time?”

“Parties aren’t really my scene,” Claire said, cringing. She looked at her friend and immediately noticed that wasn’t the answer she was expecting. She looked disappointed, almost as if she had counted on Alexis to go with her. Claire swallowed and opened her mouth to rectify when Ben insisted:

“Come on, we can dress up as famous trios or something,” he said. “We can be Luke, Leia and Han. I would be Leia.”

“I don’t know, I don’t think you’d look good in a white dress,” Alexis commented, crooking an eyebrow at him.

“Or in a golden bikini,” Claire snickered.

“I would look stunning in a golden bikini and you’re so mean for saying otherwise,” Ben grumbled, but that didn’t deter him from throwing other suggestions: “Okay, then, Harry, Ron and Hermione. Or the Three Amigos, we can totally go as the Three Amigos.”

“Where would we get mariachi hats?” Claire asked, but Alexis had more practical issues in mind.

“Is it even a costume party?”

“It better be. What’s the point of Halloween if you can’t play dress up?” Ben complained.

“Candy!” Alexis and Claire in unison and immediately started laughing at Ben’s startled expression.

_Bilbo_ barked, demanding for his plushie to be thrown again. Claire did so without even looking in what direction she had done it… and immediately regretted that decision.

“ _Bilbo_ , no!” she shouted, but it was too late: the plushie was already sinking in the pool and the sheprador was taking impulse to jump in after it. Claire understood the split second clarity that Meg had talked about when falling from a horse right before her dog’s body hit the water heavily and splashed them head to toe.

“My shirt!” Ben complained out loud, but Claire was too busy watching for her dog to worry about him.

“ _Bilbo_!” she called out and she was ready to jump after him when _Bilbo_ ’s head emerged, the plushie between his teeth, as he happily swam towards them. He placed the plushie on Claire’s lap before climbing the side of the pool and shaking (spraying even more water all over the three) and then barking happily to demand the plushie be thrown once more.

“Oh, my God,” Alexis said between chuckles.

“You useless dog,” Claire said, as _Bilbo_ ran and came back, expecting the plushie at any second.

Ben, however, was the one who laughing the loudest. And perhaps that should have been some sort of signal of what he was about to do, but it still caught the girls completely by surprise: he put his hand on Alexis’ back and gave her a push, barely enough to offset her balance. Alexis let out a whimper as she went down and sank on the water.

“Benjamin, what the…?” Claire started, before he pushed her off as well. She didn’t have any time to scream before the water swallowed her down, cold and blue on the pool’s reflection. She touched the bottom and gave herself some impulse until her face broke the surface and she could breathe in again just to insult Ben: “You fucking idiot!”

“Cannon ball!” Ben shouted as jumped in as well, splashing them even more. He swam up, spit the water in his mouth in a graceful arc and smiled at the girls. “What? I thought that was why we came here!”

Claire put both hands on his head and forcefully sank him while Alexis half laughed, half coughed her lungs out.

For a second, everything was the most absolutely wonderful chaos. They pushed the water at each other and swam clumsily in their damped clothes to tickle or try to drown each other, not even sure what team they belonged into anymore. _Bilbo_ barked and jumped at the edge of the pool, almost as if he wasn’t certain if he was allowed to join in the game, and they must have been shouting too loud as well, because the noise attracted Andrea’s attention.

She came out running through the dining room’s back door, screaming at them in Greek before she realized what she was doing and switching back to English:

“What are you kids thinking? Get out of there before you get sick! What happened? Did you slip in?”

Claire would later feel a little bad for the way they laughed at her when she was trying to be kind and get them dry. But she was in such an elated mood that it was hard to control herself until she was inside of the house, with Andrea wrapping towels around all of them and nagging at them about what a foolish thing they’d just done.

“Oh, I need to put your clothes in the dryer! You can’t just go driving in that state! And the sun is coming down, the night’s going to get chilly and you’re all wet…”

“Okay, okay, Andrea,” Claire said, throwing a glare at Alexis and Ben so they would stop laughing already and helped her out a little. “Don’t worry about us. I can lend Alexis some clothes; it’s not a big deal.”

“But you can’t lend clothes to him!” Andrea pointed out, as she wrapped a towel around Ben’s head and vigorously dried his hair. “He’s going to have to take them off!”

“I have absolutely no problem with that,” Ben said, winking at the girls. They both laughed stupidly.

Andrea either missed the joke or decided to ignore it completely. She dragged Ben upstairs, locked him up in the guest’s room and ordered him to give her his clothes so she could put them in the drier. Claire and Alexis ran to the cabin and changed quickly, all the time chuckling like fools at the fact Ben was naked in a room in the main house.

“That is a mental image I didn’t ask for and didn’t need,” Claire said, shaking her head and grimacing in disgust.

“Really? I don’t think Ben’s all that bad looking,” Alexis commented offhandedly.

Claire turned to her, with only one arm inside of her shirt’s sleeve, too stunned at that comment to keep on getting dressed. Alexis, who still in her bra and panties, blushed furiously.

“I mean, for a guy,” she said, quickly turning her back and pulling down the dry shirt Claire had given her. “He’s not bad looking for a guy.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Claire said. Suddenly her good mood had evaporated in thin air. “If you like tall, lanky and stupid.”

“He’s not stupid…”

“Do you remember that time he deep-throated an ice cream cone and got brain-frozen for five minutes?”

“Okay, fair point,” Alexis admitted. “But I was talking hypothetically, okay? All I meant was that there are worse looking guys out there. I wouldn’t date Ben or anything like that.”

“You wouldn’t?” Claire asked.

“No!” Alexis said, shaking her head and laughed as if Claire had just told a joke so bad it circled right back to being funny. “After Henry, I’ve sworn off guys.”

Claire didn’t want to make the obvious question. She really didn’t. But there was a part of her brain, a part she liked to refer to as “stupidly gay”, that just pushed the words out of her mouth:

“Who are you going to date then?”

Alexis blinked at her as if she hadn’t understood the question and Claire had a split second to push the stupidly gay part of her brain back into the Closet of Shame where it belonged.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, with a chuckle that sounded faked even to her ears. “Let’s go get not-the-worse-looking-guy-out-there and get the hell out of dodge.”

“Oh, please, don’t tell him I said that,” Alexis begged. “He’s going to think I’ve got a crush on him or something stupid like that.”

“I don’t know.” Claire tilted her head and smirked at her. “What’s in it for me?”

“You’re such a jerk, Novak!” Alexis complained. “Just don’t tell him, okay?”

They had reached the cabin’s doorway. The entire ranch was bathed in the faint orange light that was quickly fading. Claire looked at the shadow of the big house towering over them and for a second, for an entire glorious second, she tried to pretend she didn’t just have that conversation with Alexis or that it was as inconsequential as Alexis wanted it to be. She tried to pretend she didn’t have a crush on her friend and she wouldn’t be brokenhearted when she fell for someone else.

She almost succeeded, for a second or two.

“Race you.”

“Claire!” Alexis screamed behind her but Claire had already bolted, leaving her behind as she laughed out loud.

Alexis insulted her all the way to the house and then she insulted her in front of Ben and Ben (with his freshly dried clothes) didn’t understand the joke, but he laughed anyway. Andrea scolded them some more for being reckless and reminded them that orange juice was good in case any of them woke feeling sick the following day and they lowered their eyes in shame. They still exploded in uncontrollable chuckles the second they were in the car and driving to the town.

“What time’s your curfew?” Ben asked. “’Cause I was thinking maybe we could go to the cliffs and hang out a little while…”

“So you can push us into the river and get us all wet again?” Alexis scoffed.

“Don’t think we’re not onto you, Braeden,” Claire added, looking at him over the passenger seat’s backrest. “We know what you’re thinking in that weird little brain of yours.”

“Oh, yeah? What am I thinking right now?” Ben defied her, inching closer to her on the seat.

“That you’re hoping my mom doesn’t have her shotgun at hand if she sees you climbing up my window,” Alexis said.

“Yeah, but that’s more like a general prayer,” Ben explained. They parked in front of his house, still laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world. “Well, I’ll see you guys later.”

They watched him strode away across his lawn. Claire kept her eyes fixed on his back for a while.

“You know, I think you’re right,” she told Alexis. “I mean, if we’re going to have a guy climbing up our window in the middle of the night, we could do worse.”

Alexis laughed, but it wasn’t like before. It sounded a little forced and awkward. Or perhaps that was Claire’s stupidly gay part wishful thinking.

“I’m gonna tell him you said that,” Alexis concluded and put on the radio.

 

* * *

 

The trip to Elmont was unexpectedly pleasant. Meg drove this time around and they once again talked about horses, food and the places where they had grown up. Meg had a million little anecdotes about Morningstar, most of them about the happy summers she had spent there. For a place that also had such bad memories for her, it was obvious how much she loved it in the way her voice became cheerier and her eyes glimmered. Castiel wondered why people couldn’t see that side of her more often, the passionate side that loved her home so much she was willing to do anything to keep it. He was soon reminded of how she kept it carefully hidden.

They stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast where Meg had made sure to ask for individual bedrooms this time. They still were side by side, so if they needed anything it was just a matter of stepping outside and knocking on the other’s door.

Meg did this exactly ten minutes after they had arrived. Castiel had barely put his bag down.

“Do you want to go out?” she asked. “We could have lunch or whatever.”

“Uh… sure.” Castiel closed the door behind him and followed Meg downstairs. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Peachy, why you ask?”

“Because last time, around this hour, you were already freaking out.”

“Oh, that.” Meg shrugged and started talking very fast: “Well, you know, it was the first race of the season and _Morningstar_ ’s first time on the track. What can I say, I’m a bit superstitious and I thought maybe that first race would be an indicative of how we were going to do in the future. And we don’t have as much as stake here. My grandpa didn’t even get out of bed for three hundred grand. The Juvenile, though, then I’m gonna be freaking out because the purse is much bigger and we stand to lose a lot more.”

Castiel watched her closely as they walked down the street towards a restaurant they had seen on their way to the B&B.

“You’re going out of your mind, aren’t you?”

“You know what would be really nice? If you didn’t remind me of it at all and we just had a goddamn lunch in peace,” Meg snapped.

Castiel could do that.

It was actually pleasant, sitting there with Meg, eating and talking about anything except the following day’s race. They took a long walk around Elmont, which was such a pleasant little town that Castiel promised himself he would bring Claire the next time they came there. They found an ice cream parlor and sat outside, watching the orange dry leaves shake on the trees and not saying a word for a while. Meg seemed a lot less anxious by the time they came back to the B&B. They were laughing as they climbed to their rooms and Castiel wasn’t even sure about what, but Meg stood in front of her door with one last breathy chuckle and commented:

“I could get used to this.”

Castiel wasn’t sure he wanted to ask what she meant by that. But suddenly she was standing very close to him, her chin lifted up a little and her eyes staring directly into his. And as always when she was so close, his stomach did a backflip and he started sputtering nonsense.

“We… we have a big day tomorrow. We should get some rest. We… we should be on the track early and…”

Meg stepped backwards, with her usual smirk in her face.

“I guess you’re right. Goodnight, Castiel.”

And like a breeze, she stepped inside of her room and closed the door behind her.

“Goodnight,” Castiel mumbled to the empty space.

So there was that. Castiel wasn’t sure why these little moments of… tension (he guessed it was the best way to describe it) kept happening between them. Or maybe they were happening in his mind and Meg just either didn’t see it or ignore them for his own sake. After all, she had stated clearly and repeatedly that she wasn’t interested.

He still spent a lot more time than he’d like to admit staring at the ceiling and wondering if Meg was sleeping in the other room that night. That was one of the reasons he was cranky the following day. The other reason was that no one, no matter how much of an early riser they were, liked to be woken up by someone banging insistently on the door. It was all the worse when they found their boss on the other side, way more awake than anyone was allowed to be at that hour of the day, dressed in running clothes and with a water bottle in her hand.

Meg gave him a little mocking smirk.

“Well, I was going to ask if you’d like to come, but I see you’re still in dreamland,” she said.

“You’re going running?” Castiel rubbed his eyes. “Isn’t that the horse’s job?”

“Oh, you’re funny in the mornings, aren’t you?” Meg asked. She still didn’t seem at all taken aback by Castiel’s grumpiness. “Yes, unless you have a shot of endorphins lying around somewhere, I’m going running. I’ll see you in the track. Make sure my horse is at top condition.”

“Yes, Miss Masters,” Castiel groaned.

The effect might have been greatly diminished by his yawning. As soon as Meg left, he jumped back on the bed and slumbered for at least another hour. That and a big cup of coffee were enough for him to be at least a lot more wakeful by the time he went to the track and found _Morningstar_ in his cubicle.

“How are you doing?” he asked him. The colt huffed and stomped on the ground, as if he was anxious to go out there and maybe bite some of his competitors. “Yeah, thought so. Meg’s excited too.”

Castiel grabbed the brush and started grooming him in an attempt to calm him down, but as always, it was to no avail. _Morningstar_ was kicking and shifting with his usual pent up energy that made him so hard to work with. But at the same time, it wasn’t hard to see why he and Meg made such a great team. They were pure adrenaline and he couldn’t imagine anyone trying to keep up with them.

“You need to do a good job today,” he told her, trying to get him to at least stay still for a little way. “If you win just like last time, Meg’s going to be happy and…”

“Oh, my God, _Morningstar_?” a female voice called out outside of the cubicle.

_Morningstar_ step forwards, completely ignoring Castiel, to sniff the brunette woman who had just approached the cubicle.

“Oh, hello, you nightmare,” she said, smiling and patting him on the muzzle. “Yes, of course I have a treat for you.” She produced a piece of apple and offered it to him. _Morningstar_ devoured it in a second.

“Excuse me,” Castiel intervened, frowning at her. Was it allowed to walk around giving other people’s horses treats?

But after taking a second look at her, he recognized her.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just… I used to work with this horse.”

“I… I know,” Castiel stuttered. “You’re Ruby…”

He left the name hang awkwardly in the air. He didn’t know her last name and if she had divorced Tom in such catastrophic circumstances as everyone had told him, then she probably didn’t want to be called “Masters.”

She smiled and dispersed the awkwardness by shaking the hand he offered over the gate’s cubicle.

“I’m Castiel Novak.”

“You’re _Morningstar_ ’s new trainer?” she asked. “How are you faring? Have you taken up the habit of drinking disproportionally yet?”

“I confess I was tempted to topple down into substance abuse at the beginning.” Castiel couldn’t help but to smile at the fact he was finally meeting someone who knew what he had gone through. “But we have actually developed a very professional working relationship.”

_Morningstar_ shook his mane and stepped away from him. Castiel could almost swear he was glaring at him, as if he was wondering why Ruby gave him treats and Castiel didn’t.

“Mostly.”

“That’s nice,” Ruby said, with a chuckle. “Never thought I’d see the day this bad boy raced. Who’s his jockey?”

“Meg is.” Castiel frowned at her, confused. Shouldn’t she know that?

Apparently, she didn’t, because her eyes widened and her moth hanged slightly opened. She let out a sound that almost sounded like a giggle, as if she thought Castiel was kidding with her, but it died in her lips.

“Really?”

“Why would I lie about that?”

“So she didn’t sell him?” Ruby asked, perplexed. Then she shook her head. “Of course she didn’t.”

“She is very attached to him,” Castiel pointed out.

“Or she’s stubborn and wants to prove me wrong on all accounts,” Ruby replied. Her smile had a tinge of bitterness now. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Castiel wouldn’t either. He opened his mouth, but Ruby looked away from him.

“Ah, speaking of the devil…”

“Ruby!” Meg exclaimed.

She had already tied her hair up and put on her riding clothes. She actually seemed happy to see her former sister-in-law as she walked up to her and gave her a quick hug. Ruby’s smile became bigger as they stepped away and looked at each other, the way old friends did when they hadn’t seen each other in a while and were trying to detect changes in the other.

“You’ve lost even more weight?” Ruby asked, poking Meg on the ribs. “Girl, you’re going to disappear.”

“ _Morningstar_ appreciates it, though,” Meg replied with a grin. “What about you? How you’ve been?”

“Ah, you know. Working,” Ruby made a vague gesture towards a cubicle in diagonal to theirs. “I’ve got a very promising filly. Her name’s _Lady Rowena_. She’s beautiful. Would you like to see her?”

“Maybe later,” Meg said. “Hey, it was great to see you. Perhaps we can go for beers later.”

“Sure,” Ruby said. There was something a little fake in her tone of voice. As if she didn’t want to reject Meg outright, but she also had no intentions of having a beer with her.

The minute she turned around, Meg’s face fell. She stepped inside of the cubicle with him and the colt.

“Cas, we’re in trouble,” she whispered, even though Ruby was already out of earshot.

“What, why?” Castiel asked, as thoughts started swirling in his head. Had there been something in the piece of apple Ruby had given to _Morningstar_? Something only Meg could know about? Something in the track that would make them lose to _Lady Rowena_ or…?

“Ruby is one of the best trainers there is,” Meg said. “I have never ridden a horse against one of hers, but I know how she works and you don’t stand a chance.”

Castiel blinked at her.

“Thanks,” he groaned.

“Oh, don’t be like that, you know I’m just being honest,” she replied with a shrug. She bent her crop in her hands, almost to the point of breaking it. “Why is she even here? Last time we spoke she told me she was moving to California.”

“Well, you know, some people like to cross half the country to compete in these races,” Castiel replied. Meg glared at him, obviously not calm at all, so he put his hands on her shoulders. “Okay, listen, maybe I am not as experienced as Ruby and maybe she knows how this all works better. But may I remind you it was me who figure out how to keep _Morningstar_ calm? I’m the one who got you both where we are now, Meg.”

“Okay, yeah, but…”

“And we have already one victory under our belts,” he reminded her. “And we’re definitely getting another one today. So, stop fretting. We’re going to be fine.”

“I’m not fretting,” Meg complained, but she let out a deep sigh and turned her attention to the colt. “Let’s get him ready.”

They saddled up _Morningstar_ in silence, because Meg was obviously too busy roaming her fretting thoughts and Castiel couldn’t come up with anything that would make her any less nervous. They got the number eight this time and before they knew it, they were calling the horses and their jockeys to the gate.

“Oh, shit,” Meg muttered, stiffening as she put on her helmet.

“Meg, listen,” Castiel said, stepping up to her. “It’s going to be okay. Just like it was in Iroquois. You’re going to win this.”

“If you say so.” Meg breathed out and raised her face at him. “There’s just one more thing I need to do.”

“Well, you better hurry up, because…”

Castiel never finished that phrase and a second later, he completely forgot where he was going with it. Meg threw her arms around his neck and stood on the tip of her toes. Their mouths crashed, clumsily at first, but as Castiel realized what was happening, he closed his eyes and placed his hands on Meg’s waist to pull her close. Any rational thought, any question as to why it was happening, were completely abandoned in the warmth of that kiss. There was only her, and her lips, and her tiny body pressed up against him.

She broke away after a few seconds and said something Castiel didn’t quite catch on account of his heart pounding so hard it drowned out all other sounds. Meg had already mounted and she was guiding _Morningstar_ outside without sparing him a second look by the time he recovered.

“Good… good luck,” he muttered to the empty air in front of him.

It still took him a few seconds to compose himself enough to go take his place on the stands. He sat on the side and saw Ruby waving at him a few seats beside, but he was still too shaken up to wave back. It was as if by kissing him, Meg had completely transferred all her nervousness onto him.

“They’re at the gate,” the narrator announced. Castiel lifted up his head, holding his breath like everyone else on Belmont Park. “And they’re off!”

The horses started as a heap of legs, muzzles and jockeys but it was easy to distinguish _Morningstar_ ’s black fur among them.

“Come on,” Castiel muttered under his breath, clutching his own knees out of pure nervousness. “Come on!”

“ _Lady Rowena_ takes the lead… _Indigo Child_ is right behind… they reach the first quarter… and things are quickly changing at the top as they approach the first half… _Morningstar the Third_ leaves _Indigo Child_ behind… _Lady Rowena_ remains in the lead…”

“Come on!” Castiel said, practically jumping in his seat. “You can do it, come on!”

People were shouting and cheering for their favorite and Castiel had his fists clenched so tight that he felt his nails breaking his skin.

“ _Lady Rowena_ and _Morningstar the Third_ are side by side! They’re approaching the three quarter mark… there’s still doesn’t seem to be a definitive winner, they’re head to head… _Morningstar the Third_ is getting a slight advantage, but _Lady Rowena_ is not letting on… they’re coming in for the last stretch… and…”

Castiel closed his eyes and held his breath.

“ _Morningstar the Third_ wins by a head!”

“Yes!” Castiel pumped his fist in the air, his knees trembling out of pure excitement. “Yes, I knew it!”

He didn’t run out to the race track like last time, not because he didn’t want to, but because he found Ruby blocking his path.

“Congrats,” she said, extending her hand.

“Thank you.” Castiel didn’t even try to hide his grin of pure satisfaction as he shook it. “It was a very tight finish.”

“Dude, it isn’t a tight finish until they have to bring out the photographs,” Ruby laughed. “But maybe next time.”

She turned around and walked away leaving Castiel with the impression she had meant something else entirely.

He didn’t really have time to think about that. Meg was proudly parading _Morningstar_ across the track and when she saw him, she made a hand gesture at him, as if she was calling him by her side. And as always, Castiel gave into her pull.


	16. Indulgencies

This time some people came to congratulate them. Some trainers that wanted to talk about _Morningstar_ and even an owner who insisted in buying them lunch and talk about siring a couple of foals for him.

“It’s a fine damn horse you have there,” Cesar Cuevas told them while they downed some beers with him. “And listen, I’ve heard some bad things about how you conduct your business, but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Mighty generous of you,” Meg said. To someone who didn’t know her, it wouldn’t have been obvious, but Castiel noticed how her smirk twitched at the sides. “But right now we’re focusing _Morningstar_ in his races…”

“I know,” Cesar cut them off. “That’s why I came to you as soon as I could. In a couple of months more, when your boy has won a bunch more races, he’s gonna be the hottest stallion in town and you can probably charge whatever you want for his little champions. I’m asking you to put me first on the list while I can still afford it.”

The stunned looks he received must have given Meg and Castiel away.

“Why, it’s almost like I have more faith your colt’s gonna break some records than you do,” Cesar commented, frowning.

“Mr. Cuevas, it’s not that we don’t appreciate your offer…” Castiel said, before he realized what he was doing and turned his gaze to Meg. He wasn’t supposed to participate in those business discussions, right? He was supposed to just train the horse and keep quiet. He didn’t even know why Meg had insisted he should come along with this.

Meg leaned over on the table, almost as if she wanted to tell Cesar a secret.

“The horse is a nightmare,” she stated bluntly. “We went through a nightmare breaking him and even now he gives us a healthy dose of attitude. So yeah, in the interest of fairness, if you really want to have some of his little champions, you’re gonna have to keep that in mind.”

Cesar grinned at them. A second later, Jesse, his husband, came back to the table with extra bottles of beer for everybody.

“That won’t be a problem,” Cesar assured them. “We’re up for the task.”

"You've never met a horse like this," Castiel insisted.

"We've met all sort of horses," Jesse replied. "We worked at the ranch of this old, angry geezer for ages."

"He was an asshole," Cesar added, nodding.

"Until finally he kicked the bucket and did the only decent thing he'd ever done for us," Jesse continued. "He left us a bunch of money. Not any of the horses, no, those went to his kids. They knew shit about racing, so they put them up for sale."

"We bought a couple," Cesar explained. "We're trying to get our ranch off the ground and we definitely need some champions. So, what do you say? We have a very pretty mare we think your boy might like."

Meg tilted her head slightly. It was an odd thing, to see someone as prickly as her taking a liking to someone, but it was plain to see she liked that pair. Perhaps because they were as stubborn as she was, if nothing else.

"I think we can arrange something," she told them.

They spent a very long time eating pizzas and drinking beer. They talked some more about Morningstar and the mare, but as the afternoon went on and they warmed up to each other, the topic started moving to other things. Meg repeated her anecdote about the broken leg, which brought a lot of laughter around the table, and Cesar and Jesse told them how they had met and fallen in love when they both came to work at the old geezer's ranch.

"Of course, we had to keep it under wraps for a time," Cesar said. "You know how some people just can't mind their own damn business?"

"I can imagine," Meg said, with a little laugh.

"To you it must have been a lot easier," Jesse added. Both Meg and Castiel frowned at him, confused. "You know, because you manage your own ranch."

Cesar burst into laughter and Meg and Castiel laughed along, not sure they had understood the joke entirely. But the Cuevas were great company, so by the end of the evening, with more beer than they should probably have drunk, they all exchanged phone numbers and promises the keep in touch about _Morningstar_.

"We'll be waiting to hear from you, Masters." Cesar shook both their hands before and Jesse walked down the street.

"They seem like good people," Castiel commented.

"Yeah," Meg laughed. "Except the part where they assumed that we were married."

"They didn't... I mean surely that's not what..."

Castiel's mumbled excuses vanished in thin air as Meg shook her head. They hadn't talked and Castiel was pretty sure they just weren't going to talk about the fact she had kissed him right before the race. It almost seemed like it had happened a long time ago, maybe in another plane of existence. And he wanted to bring it up but when they approached the B&B, Meg took away his only chance to.

“Listen, I gotta make some calls to the bank and stuff,” she told him, as she stretched her hands to open the door. “So if you want to go out and have some dinner without me, that’s fine.”

“Oh.” Castiel blinked at her, as if she had pulled the rug from underneath his feet and now he was having trouble finding his balance again. “Are you sure?”

“I think I ate enough with the Cuevas for a week,” Meg replied with a smirk on her lips. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Okay,” Castiel mumbled as she opened the door and stepped inside. “I’ll… I’ll see you.”

Meg nodded briefly and stepped inside of the room without clarifying if they would be seeing each other later that night or the following day when they left for Northeast Haven. Castiel was once again left alone to ponder and his thoughts became a whirlwind.

She had kissed him again. He hadn’t dreamed that. That had happened, but just like when they had slept together after Iroquois, she wasn’t even going to address it. Perhaps she didn’t want him to address it either, but he couldn’t get it out of his brain.

He walked around the town like a ghost, trying to figure out what was he supposed to do now. Should he just… ignore it, let it go? But he didn’t think he could do that. He could never ignore Meg. He had been hyperaware of her for days on end after last time and now he just didn’t think he could deal with this. He couldn’t deal with it happening again without at the very least…

He passed in front of a supermarket, stopped in his tracks and walked back to get inside it. Suddenly, it was very clear to him what he needed to do.

“Hot date tonight?” the cashier asked when he saw Castiel’s purchases.

He didn’t say anything, just put his money down and left refusing to accept his cheeks were burning red.

Back in his room, he tried watching some television, but all he did was zap through channels without focusing on a single one. Finally, at nine o’clock, he called up Claire and tried with all his might to take an interest on how her day had gone.

“Whatever Andrea tells you when you come back, I just want you to know that Ben started it.”

Castiel wasn’t sure he even wanted to know the meaning behind that.

“Okay. Have a great night. Don’t eat too much pizza.”

“Roger!”

If Claire noticed the anxiety in his voice, she didn’t say anything about it. Castiel put his phone down, took a deep breath and opened the mini fridge to get the champagne he had bought. He wondered if he should go downstairs and ask the receptionist if he could borrow some glasses, but he knew that he would lose his courage if he did all of that. So he ended up just calling and five minutes later, a very kind girl brought them up to him.

“Congratulations on your win, sir,” she told him with a smile.

“Thank you. Yeah, that’s… very kind of you,” Castiel mumbled thoughtlessly.

The girl gave him another smile and left him to face what he wanted to do.

He took a couple of deep breaths and came out of the hallway to knock on Meg’s door. He almost thought she hadn’t heard him, but a second later she appeared at the doorway and shot a questioning look at him and the bottle in his hand.

“You… you said it was tradition to drink champagne after a victory,” he reminded her.

“It is.” Meg smiled and stepped back to let him inside. “Just thought you wouldn’t want to have a repeat… of last time.”

Castiel put the champagne down on the desk. There was his opening and he wasn’t going to let it pass.

“I thought you didn’t either. But then you kissed me.”

“I did that, yes,” Meg admitted with a shrug. “Did it bother you?”

“I wouldn’t say that, no,” he said. “It just made me very confused.”

They didn’t say a word, just stared at each other from different ends of the room. It was incredibly awkward, but also there was this heavy electricity crackling in the air that just wouldn’t go away.

“Meg…” he started. His breath got caught in his throat when she looked up at him and he had to start again. “If you don’t want anything, that’s… that’s fine. I will respect that. But I’m going to ask you to please stop acting like you do or…”

He trailed off again. Meg was slowly but surely walking towards him and getting all up in his personal space again.

“So you say I’m sending mixed signals?” she smirked up.

“That’s… yes, I would say that.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” she said, taking a step even closer to him. “I just really find it hard to think straight when you’re staring at me with those baby blues of yours.”

“Meg… you’re doing it again,” Castiel said, even though wasn’t that exactly the reason he came there? Wasn’t it because he wanted her fingers hooking on the edge of his jeans and pulling him closer? Wasn’t it because he wanted her so close the only way to keep balance was to put his arms around her waist and look down at the curve of her lips?

“How’s this for a signal?” she asked.

She stood on the tip of her toes and kissed him again. Castiel closed his eyes and let the familiar taste of her lip gloss invade his mouth, pulling her closer, taking in the citric smell of her shampoo…

She broke the kiss, but kept her mouth close enough to his that her breath tickled his face when she spoke:

“I want a repeat. Now. Am I being clear enough?”

“Crystal clear, yes.”

This time he kissed her and there were no more words needed.

 

* * *

 

Castiel rolled over only to find the other side of the bed disappointedly empty. He sat up with a sudden burst of energy. It couldn’t be morning already, could it? He had only dozed off for a few seconds and Meg’s head was still tucked underneath his chest then. He looked around, but he had left his cellphone in the other room. The slits through the window’s pane were still darkened and that was the only way he could tell he hadn’t fallen asleep. Though that meant nothing, because Meg was such an early riser…

The toilet flushed and the water ran in the bathroom. A few seconds later, Meg stepped out, donning nothing but his shirt. She was so tiny that it looked like a big nightgown on her. She smiled at him as she dropped it to the ground and slid underneath the covers with him again.

“Good, you’re awake,” she said. “I was hoping you weren’t the kind of guy who rolls over and falls asleep as soon as the deed is done.”

“Yes, that is quite rude,” Castiel agreed.

Meg’s throaty laugh made his nerves stand on end, but she was keeping her distance on the mattress. So obviously she wasn’t hoping he would be up just for another romp.

“I liked it how you were prepared this time,” she commented. “Like you knew this would happen.”

Castiel blushed just as violently as he had when the cashier had assumed that he had a date that night because he had bought condoms and alcohol.

“I was… hoping.”

Meg didn’t say a word for a while. She just settled down on the messed up sheets and leaned her head on her open palm.

“Well, it was really nice,” she told him, with that usual cheeky smirk of hers. “But there’s a couple of things we need to talk about if this is just going to keep happening. Establish some ground rules.”

“Rules. I’m all for rules.” Castiel nodded and turned to face her. He didn’t know where to even begin to discuss all the issues this – whatever this was – was going to bring if it became a regular thing, so he waited until she started.

“I don’t… you were right saying that I was sending mixed signals,” she admitted. “So, I want to clear things up right now. Don’t think this is some kind of serious relationship thing or anything like that, okay? We fall together in bed now and then, we have a good time and that’s it.”

Castiel nodded again. He expected as much, but still, hearing her saying it out loud, it… it gave another dimension to it. He was pretty sure he had been heels over head for her for a while, but he had kept those feelings under control while there was nothing going on. It may be more difficult for him to do so now, but then again, he would take what he could get.

He really hoped that decision wouldn’t blow up in his face eventually.

Meg analyzed his expression and even though he didn’t say anything, she seemed to find what she there satisfactory enough, because she moved on to the next issue.

“I would really appreciate it if you didn’t comment this with anyone. It’s no one’s business but ours.”

“Very well,” he accepted. She arched an eyebrow, as if she hadn’t expected to accept those conditions so easily. “I have to think about Claire. She is a sensitive child and… I don’t know how she would react to you and I … so yes, it’s better to keep it under wraps,” he concluded rather clumsily.

“Alright, then…” Meg hesitated as if she was trying to find another topic they needed to address, but after a few seconds it was obvious she was coming up empty. “I really thought this was going to be more complicated.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. You just seemed like a hopeless romantic to me.”

Castiel smiled despite himself. Was it really that obvious?

“I can do simple,” he promised. One thing was for sure: it was a great relief to know where they were standing now. Even if it was shaky ground that could cave in at any second, it was good to know what he could expect to come out from all of this.

Meg licked her lips, but just when he thought she was going to kiss him again, she leaned back on the mattress with a sigh and turned off the night lamp.

“We should sleep. We have a long trip tomorrow.”

“Very well.”

He waited until she settled down with her back towards him before he tried to inch closer to her. Hesitantly, he stretched an arm to put it around her waist…

Meg shifted as if she was trying to crawl away from him.

“Not a big fan of cuddling, Cas.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, lifting his hand up as fast as if her skin burned him.

Meg moved a little further away, but after a while, her breathing became deeper and calmer. Castiel watched the back of her head until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.

 

* * *

 

There was something different off about her uncle after he returned that Saturday.

For starters, he didn’t come to pick her up. Claire knew for a fact the track they went to this time was in New York (because she had read about it) and initially Castiel had told her they would leave in the morning and be there by noon. But then he had called her up (startling both _Bilbo_ and Ben who were cuddling on the floor again) and told her they would be a little late.

“We… overslept,” he said.

“Meg doesn’t oversleep,” Claire pointed out, frowning.

“Alright, _I_ overslept,” Castiel admitted with sigh. “But the point is, I need you to ask Sheriff Mills if you can stay there for lunch.”

“I don’t think she’ll be here,” Claire said. “But it’s okay. We’ll just go for lunch at the Roadhouse.”

Alexis returned from downstairs with a note from her mom in hand.

“She says she had to leave early about some guy getting drunk and crashing his car in a lamppost,” she explained. “She left us pancakes in the oven.”

“Awesome, pancakes,” Ben groaned as he turned around and buried his face in _Bilbo_ ’s fur. “Bring me some.”

Claire threw a pillow at him. Ben waved his hands in the air and then looked at her indignant, as if she had just dared attack him for no reason at all.

“Get up, you lazy ass. Slow and steady doesn’t win the horse race and oversleeping is for losers,” Claire said, trying to imitate Meg’s tone of voice as well as she could.

“That is uncanny. Don’t ever do that again,” Ben begged while Alexis chuckled.

After some more insistence and coaxing, finally they all got out of bed and devoured the pancakes. And afterwards, even though it hadn’t even been an hour, Ben insisted they should go to the Roadhouse and have a burger. The place was packed with families and people enjoying the Sunday, but they still got served pretty quickly because, according to Ben, “working for Ellen had its perks”.

“Dude, are you a bottomless pit or something?” Claire asked, looking at him inserting French fry after French fry in his mouth.

“I’m a growing boy.” Ben shrugged.

“Yeah, well, if you keep that up, the only growing you’ll be doing is gonna of the horizontal kind,” Alexis teased him.

Ben blinked at them as if he had no idea what they were talking about and both girls laughed in his face. Castiel sent Claire a text saying he was close, but she was having such a good time with her friends she didn’t want to put an end to it.

“Tell him we’ll leave you on the ranch later,” Ben suggested.

“It’s a long drive, guys,” Claire tried to argue.

“It’s no problem. We don’t mind at all,” Alexis assured her.

Claire did mind. She minded that Alexis and Ben were going to spend the drive back alone, together, without her. She didn’t know why that idea made her so uncomfortable. They were friends before she moved there, so why should she care?

“Sure, that sounds okay,” she forced herself to say and sent a message to her uncle informing him of that decision. She grabbed her bottle and drank up, wondering if maybe Ben’s boss would let them steal alcohol from behind the counter.

Not that she would drink it. The last thing she needed was showing up back at the ranch with any sort of indication she had done something she shouldn’t, like have their male friend sleeping in the same room with them. But then again, perhaps if she suggested it Alexis would be impressed with her boldness and…

“Hey, Claire, do you think your uncle likes the Masters?”

Claire choked on her soda. She had been so busy contemplating doing something self-destructive she had no idea that was the topic of conversation they were touching upon right then.

“What?” she asked, looking at Ben as if he had just spitted on her mother’s grave.

“Just saying,” Ben shrugged. “You always jokes he has a crush on her. And all those road trips outside of town…”

“No, I don’t think he actually has a crush on her. And it’s their job. The horse has to run the races to actually win them,” Claire argued. “Oh, my God, why would you even suggest something like that?”

“I don’t know, I think it would be pretty cool if your uncle dated the Masters,” Alexis suggested. “Because then you would get that awesome house with that pool…”

“Provided they don’t have children,” Ben pointed out. “But even then, you could drown them and pretend it was an accident and you’d be the only heir.”

“That’s horrible. Why am I friends with you?” Claire asked, narrowing her eyes at Ben.

“Hey, you were the one who showed us that Japanese horror movie, so if someone has a fucked up sense of what’s fun, I say it’s you,” Ben said, raising his hands defensively.

“I’m not going to drown my cousins!” Claire said loudly. Bothe her friends laughed and she had to try hard to pretend she was still mad at them both. “Because I won’t have them.”

“Right. Because your uncle isn’t getting married to the Masters,” Ben pointed out.

“Because she’s the worst,” Alexis added.

“Well, she’s not _the worst_ ,” Claire replied.

She didn’t know why she felt the impulse to defend Meg. Perhaps because while she was mean when she was working with the horses and distant when they had dinner with her in the main house, she was also… not horrible to her. She encouraged her when Claire had trouble getting up on the horse, she gave her tips on how to better hold herself when she was up there and she actually wasn’t as snobbish as everyone seemed to think, willing to step ankle deep into horse shit in order to work with them. But even then…

“I still wouldn’t want her to date my uncle,” she admitted, cringing. “That’d be weird.”

“No,” Alexis shook her head. “Can you imagine if they broke up? You would have to move away.”

“You’re not moving away, are you?” someone asked. They all jumped a little as Jo approached their table.

“Uh… no, we were just… we didn’t order those.” Claire frowned as Jo put three chocolate milkshakes on their table.

“Nope, these are courtesy of my mom,” Jo said, smiling at them all. “She’s happy because your uncle made her three hundred dollars yesterday.”

They all looked at the counter. Ellen grinned and waved at them.

“Oh, you watched the race?” Claire asked, not sure how to feel about that.

Jo beamed and nodded.

“I bet on your uncle’s horse too,” she said. She didn’t offer any insights as to how much that had earned her, but Claire had the impression it had been far more than three hundred dollars.

“He’s not really my uncle’s…”

“Yeah, don’t remind that to folks around here,” Jo suggested. “It’ll make them less likely to get excited when we put on the race on the TV. Enjoy the shakes!”

Ben had already slurped down half of his before he slowed down to offer another insight:

“And you know, if he dated her, he would be the Masters’ boyfriend and nobody would like him.”

It could have been that conversation. In fact, Claire was pretty sure it was that conversation. But when Alexis and Ben finally dropped her off at the ranch and she walked into the main house to find Meg and Castiel having coffee in the couch, it just... it seemed so... domestic. So much like they had been doing that for years and it was just a thing they did: they just sat in silence and drank coffee.

She froze on the door, unsure what to do next.

"Claire!" Castiel called. He left his cup of coffee on the table and stood up to walk to her. He opened his arms as if he wanted to hug her, but Claire shook her head slightly and he opted for giving her a light squeeze on the shoulder instead. "Hello. Glad to finally see you're home."

"Home would be the cabin," Claire said. "Which you weren't in when I got there."

"Yes, I know that," Castiel said, lowering his eyes a bit as if he was ashamed of that. "But, uh... you weren't there first and Meg asked if I wanted to have some coffee..."

"You don't have to give the girl a detailed explanation," Meg interrupted and Castiel shut up. Claire was thinking that would be the end of it, that they could leave now and have a microwaved dinner like every Sunday. But Meg shifted on the couch to orient her body towards her and did the weirdest thing. She asked: "How was your weekend?"

"Why?" Claire asked, frowning.

"Just making polite conversation." Meg shrugged. "It's a thing people do."

"Yes, I know that, but..."

"Meg invited us to have dinner over here," Castiel interrupted. In retrospective, that was a good thing, because Claire was about to ask something along the lines of _'What do you care?'_. "So if you have any homework you need to finish or..."

"No, I'm good," Claire said. And for once she wasn't lying: Alexis, Ben and she had finished their homework under the watchful eye of Sheriff Mill's that Saturday afternoon before they were allowed to go up and watch Japanese horror movies. "What's Andrea making?"

"She left some roast beef ready. I just need to put it in the oven."

"Wait, she's not here?" Claire asked, as it slowly dawn on her what that would mean.

"Nah, I gave her and Benny the day off. They went out the town to have a dinner date," Meg explained. She finished her cup of coffee and left it back on the table, next to Castiel's. "So it's just going to be the three of us."

Claire couldn't help but to feel a little horrified by that perspective.

But there was no reason she should be, she reasoned as she dressed in her room right before dinner. It was just the Masters. They were just having dinner. It wasn't some sort of 'meet the girlfriend' awkward dinner. In fact, his uncle had only put her through one of those and in retrospective, it hadn't been nearly as terrible. That was completely different, though, and Claire vowed to keep that in mind even after Castiel took one look at her and cringed.

"Claire, you cannot wear that."

"What's wrong with it?" Claire asked, looking down.

Of course she couldn't pretend that she didn't know exactly. She had chosen her oldest pair of jeans with ostensible holes on it and a black band shirt so old it was more of a faded grey now. Yes, she wasn't super elegant, but it was just dinner, so who the hell cared?

"You cannot go into Meg's house like that," Castiel continued to argue. "Go put on something presentable, please."

"What, like you?" Claire asked, crooking an eyebrow.

Castiel was wearing a buttoned-up white shirt and a pair of jeans, except his had no holes and were strangely creaseless, almost as if he had iron them out right before this... event. He had done something to his hair, because it wasn't as ruffled as it usually was and...

"Are you wearing cologne?"

"No," Castiel lied. She knew he was lying because he immediately looked away and changed the subject. "Can you at least change the shirt to something less satanic and bloody?"

"No," Claire replied, bluntly. "'Cause I'm a teenager. My job is to shock and disgust adults who can't handle my realness."

Castiel either didn't catch her sarcasm or knew it was going to be impossible to convince her otherwise, because he gave up.

"Okay, fine. It's just dinner."

He said it like he too needed to remind himself of that simple fact.

And that was weird, because he needed the Masters to think he was responsible and all that jazz because he worked with her, but her opinion about him as a person couldn't have been that important for him. Could it?

"Hello," Meg greeted them when they arrived. Her eyes immediately dropped to Claire's shirt, and she crooked an eyebrow. "Wow."

"I tried to tell her to put on another shirt," Castiel immediately started apologizing.

" _Evil Dead_ , huh? Classic."

Claire was just as surprised as Castiel.

"Didn't peg you for a horror fan."

"Kid, please, I went to a Catholic school," Meg laughed as she finished placing the glasses. Castiel immediately stated shuffling around to help, but there was really not much he could do except pretend to accommodate the silverware. "Horror movies were one way to rebel. _The Exorcist_ was a favorite amongst my friend. I can still do the voice."

"No way," Claire chuckled.

Meg settled the beef in the middle of the table and spoke with a very deep, unsettling tone:

"Your mother sucks cocks in hell!"

Castiel almost jumped off his chair and Claire burst into laughter. It had been a near perfect imitation.

"Okay, no more demonic voices," Meg said. "Let's just eat dinner."

"You're a woman of many talents, aren't you?" Castiel said, although it didn't look like he considered the ability to imitate a movie demon all that impressive.

"It's a neat party trick," Meg replied. "And surprising people is always a good thing, in my opinion."

It was an innocuous enough comment. It wasn't even funny or intended to be funny.

That was why it was so strange when Castiel giggled and lowered his eyes to his plate. Like a teen girl when her crush made a joke that wasn't all that great. Claire would know. She had seen it plenty of times.

And suddenly it wasn't that funny that Meg could do the Devil's voice or that they kept looking at each other over the glasses and laughing as they talked about the trip back. It wasn't that normal that Meg asked her about school and that Castiel made sure her glass was never empty. Every interaction and exchanged glances between them were just loaded with suspicion now and Claire just couldn't, for the life of her, pinpoint exactly why.

It was weird. It was just a little too weird.

Or maybe she was just seeing things that weren't really there. That was also a distinct possibility. Maybe that chat she'd had with Alexis and Ben was messing with her perception of things and now the possibility that her uncle was keeping something from her was haunting her.

Neither Castiel nor Meg noticed that she was awfully quiet. And if they did, they didn't say a word about it.

Meg gave them two pieces of a lemon pie that Andrea had cooked as dessert, even though they finished dinner pretty late and Claire should probably go to bed. She had to go to school the following day. Why wasn't Castiel watching the time and telling her she should sleep early and all those lame things he told her when he thought she wasn't behaving?

"Let us help you with that," he offered when they were done and Meg started picking up the plates.

"Nah, don't worry," Meg said, shaking her eyes. "I can manage."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Besides, you should go. Isn't tomorrow a school day?"

"Right." Castiel closed his eyes, as if he was mentally slapping himself for having forgotten that.

So they left the main house pretty late, both thoroughly fed on actual food. Claire kept an eye on Castiel the entire way. He had his hands in his pockets and smiled and whistled all the way back to the cabin.

"Why are you so happy?" she asked him.

"Why wouldn't I be happy?" he replied. "It's a beautiful night."

He didn’t start humming, but Claire felt as if he might as well

"Well, you really should go to sleep," he said, as he opened the door of the cabin. _Bilbo_ , who have been left inside came wagging his tail at them. "Down, boy. Who's a good boy?"

And that was the last straw for Claire. She deserved an award for not starting screaming at him right then and there. It wasn't that his uncle hated her dog, exactly, but he was a horse person. He normally never petted him and called him a good boy.

There was no way, no how, that this man wasn't hiding something from her.

"Are you fucking the Masters?"

If her uncle had had something in his mouth, he would have probably spit it out. As it was, he turned to look at her with eyes wide open.

"What?"

"Are you?" Claire insisted, because she was certain he had heard her the first time. "Because if you are..."

"Claire, God, no." He shook his head. "Where did you even get that idea?"

"I don't know. You two just seemed so friendly over there. You used to not even like her. You thought she was a complete bi…"

"Well, sometimes, our first impression of people is just wrong," Castiel replied, shaking his head. "And of course, Meg and I are friendlier. We've have time to grow accustomed to each other and set our differences aside."

That made sense. Too much sense. It actually made so much sense that Claire felt a little stupid for not thinking of that before. If you were bound to be in a car with a person you hated for the better part of a day during a road trip, you either ended up killing them or making peace with them. The fact both he and Meg were still alive spoke of how they had chosen to go the second route.

"But what about all the questions she was asking me?" Claire insisted. "It was like she was trying to get me to like her..."

"Maybe she was, because she thinks with your frame and your height, you could make a good jockey," Castiel explained. "I told her you were looking into actually going to college, but that doesn't mean she won't ask you directly one of these days."

Claire was so stunned by that revelation that all her suspicions and messed ideas fell away in one swoop so she could focus on it.

"She really thinks I would be good?"

"With proper trainer and practice, of course you could be good," Castiel replied. "You're smart, you're dedicated. You can excel at whatever you please, Claire, and it saddens me that you're using your intelligence to delve into incorrect theories about my love life."

Claire chose to not even acknowledge what he was trying to tell her.

"Do you think I should go for it?" she asked. "I mean, if she asks."

Castiel sighed. Claire didn't know if it was out of relief that she had dropped the topic of his relationship with Meg or because this topic was just as equally charged as that one.

"I would like you to further your education when you finish school," Castiel replied, because he couldn't simply say 'go to college'. "But I am certain you're going to end up doing what you wish to do the most. You always do."

He said like he was tired of that particular characteristic of hers, but Claire felt flattered nonetheless.

"Okay," she muttered. "Well, I got a lot to think about. Let's go, _Bilbo_."

"Don't... don't think until too late!" Castiel screamed at her in her wake.

Claire chuckled to herself, at how silly she had been. Castiel was so clumsy when it came to human relations that there was no way he could hide a secret relationship with his boss from her.

 

* * *

 

Castiel leaned his forehead against his window's glass. That had been close. He wasn't sure what had almost given him away in front of Claire, but he had to be more careful from that day forwards. And perhaps find some other information to distract her. It had worked that night.

The ranch seemed very peaceful that night. There was a slight breeze shaking the grass blades and stars shining bright above them. That was one thing Castiel absolutely loved about it: the starlight. He had got so used to watch them almost every night before he went to bed that he couldn't imagine living in the city again without it.

And if he managed to catch a glimpse of Meg now and then, he could always feel guilty and disgusted with himself later. It wasn't like he was expecting her to turn on the lights of her room, it was just that if she happened to while he was stargazing, he was likely to linger on the window just a little longer.

That night, she was nowhere to be seen and her room remained dark. It was likely that she had finished doing the dishes and gone to bed while he tried to come up with excuses and plausible answers to Claire's questions. He was just about to draw the curtains close when a golden light illuminated Meg's window. She opened it and pop her head out, wearing a white nightgown and her long hair loose hanging over her shoulders. She crossed her arms over the ledge and leaned there for a very long time.

Castiel wondered if she was looking at the stars as well.


	17. Fairness

There were many things Claire enjoyed about autumn. The weather, that was cool enough so it would be acceptable to wear jeans and oversized shirts again, but not too cold that it was impossible to hang outside or walk to places. The trees and fields turning yellow and golden. The infinite reruns of entire horror movie franchises on TV. Discount candy at the store. She liked those Halloween related things, for sure.

What she didn't like was Halloween itself. Or everyone's idea of what Halloween should be like. Specifically, the notion that Halloween was a night to drink and act stupid at someone else's house instead of staying at one's own house and binging on crappy movies and candy.

"Come on!" Ben said, when she very clearly and in so many words inform him he couldn't pay her to go to a Halloween party with them. "What else are we going to do on the weekend? Lock ourselves up in Alexis’ room and watch horror movies? We do that every weekend!"

"Yes," Claire replied, putting a carton of mild in her tray and ignoring her friend's puppy eyes. "Because it's fun when we do that. Why fix something if it isn't broken?"

"You're such a bitter person, you know that?" Ben kept arguing while he followed her to the table where Alexis was already waiting for them. "You're a very mean, very antisocial person and that can't be healthy for you."

"And you need to buy yourself better insults," Claire replied, rolling her eyes. "Would you like me to lend you a twenty?"

Alexis almost choked on the water she was drinking. She covered her mouth with her hand and looked down. She was so cute when she was trying not to laugh.

"And you need to buy yourself a better attitude," Ben complained. "Alexis, settle the score for us: what should we do on Halloween's weekend? What we always do," he lowered his voice and breathed out: "Boring" before continuing: "Or go to Krissy's epic house party!" He raised his hands and exclaimed: "Yay!" as he waved what Claire could only assume were invisible cheerleading pom-poms.

"You guys fight like an old married couple," Alexis said and both Claire and Ben pretended to be disgusted and offended by that suggestion. She laughed again and shook her head. "And in any case, I already told Krissy I was going, so..."

"Et tu, Brute?" Claire muttered, horrified.

"You don't have to come." Alexis shrugged. "We know you don't like people..."

"Or fun," Ben added.

"And if you don't want to, that's just fine. I just thought it would be great if we all went."

Claire gritted her teeth, feeling terrible torn between her desire not to have to interact with a bunch of people he barely knew and the idea of having to spend the night feeling alone and pathetic. She was staying with Alexis again the day after the party and she was going to have to hear all about how great it was and how wonderful everything went and oh, gosh, Claire, you should have seen it! She thought she could have spared herself of that hassle by convincing her friends to stay in. But things just weren't going to work out her way, it seemed.

"No," she said, and she was pretty sure she didn't sound convincing, no matter how much she tried: "No, it's okay. I'll go. Maybe it'll be fun after all."

It was worth it just to see the way Alexis smiled.

 

* * *

 

Castiel rotated the pumpkin on the table, pensively analyzing its face and one-toothed smile. It wasn't his most artistic rendition, but he thought it was pretty decent anyway. Obviously, he wouldn't be able to appreciate the full effect until he saw it with a candle inside. But there was something missing from its expression, something he didn't think he had got quite right, something about the angle of its mouth...

Claire walked in through the door, with _Bilbo_ yapping and jumping around her as always, threw her backpack on the couch and looked at him over the kitchen counter.

"What are you doing?" she asked him, as she opened the fridge and started rummaging inside.

"Pumpkin carving," Castiel answered, waving the knife as if it was obvious. "Thought it was a good idea to get into the spirit. Care to join me?" he asked, pointing at the other two pumpkins on the table that still were waiting for their turn.

"I'll pass, thanks." Claire found a plate with some pie Andrea had brought over and didn't even bother to cut a piece. She just leaned against the counter and started eating it with her bare hands. "You do realize no child comes all the way here to trick-or-treat, right?"

Castiel was well aware of that. He still didn't think that was a reason to not carve a pumpkin.

"You used to love this."

"Well, what can I say? I'm not exactly into the spirit of celebration," she replied, shoving another piece of pie into her mouth. She looked pensive as she chewed and swallowed it. "Hey, and speaking of celebration..."

Claire told him about Krissy's Halloween party almost casually, like she didn't care for it, but Castiel didn't miss the way she side-eyed him, as if she waiting for him to interrupt her and tell her she couldn't go for one reason or the other.

Castiel had to think it over very carefully. The last time he had agreed to let Claire to go to a party, she had ended up not going just to spite him. And he did think it was a good idea for her to go, to spend time with her friends. She had been doing everything right, working at the ranch on weekends and doing her homework and all of that. She deserved to go, if she really wanted to.

There was another selfish reason tugging at the edge of his mind, but he brushed it aside as he raised his eyes at her.

"Will Krissy's parents be home?"

"No. But it's not like it's a party, party," Claire explained. "It's more like, a bunch of us are just going to gather around and you know, just hang."

"Just hang?"

"Yes. A bunch of us teenagers. Hanging together. Unsupervised."

It sounded like she wanted him to say no, but Castiel decided not to pick up that clue. He leaned back in the chair and intertwined his fingers.

“You don’t have any school projects or exams coming up, do you?”

Claire hesitated one second too long, like she was trying to remember the name of one of her professors, but she wasn’t quick enough to come up with a fake assignment for her to work on.

“No, of course you don’t. I know you. You’re responsible. You wouldn’t be asking to go to a party if you had something important coming up,” he said. “So… I guess as long as you give me Krissy’s house number, it’s okay.”

Claire stared at him, completely stunned.

“Seriously?!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t you worried about my safety or something?”

“Meg and I aren’t leaving for the Breeder’s Cup until the following morning, so you can call me if you need anything ‘cause I will still be here,” Castiel pointed out. “And besides, you’re going with Alexis, right? I’m sure if there’s any trouble, Sheriff Mills will get in contact with me right away. But I trust you, Claire. I know you can have fun responsibly.”

That seemed to be about the most annoying thing he could have told her, because she groaned and looked at the ceiling, the very image of frustration. When she lowered her eyes, she didn’t even attempt to pretend she had wanted him to say yes.

“Damn you.”

“Well, if you don’t want to go, you can just tell your friends that,” Castiel said, with a shrug.

“I can’t do that,” she complained. “They already think I’m a bore. If I don’t go, they’ll stop hanging with me altogether.”

“Ah, yes. The price of having a social life is that you actually have to socialize sometimes.”

Claire stuck her tongue out at him and blew a raspberry. And as intellectually stimulating as that conversation was, they were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Hey,” Meg greeted him. The smirk flashed through her lips so fast that Castiel wondered if he hadn’t imagined it, but he realized right away it was because Claire was right behind him. “Dr. Richardson is done with the horses and she said she wants to take a look at the dogs as well.”

“Right. Come on, _Bilbo_ ,” Claire called, patting the side of her leg. _Bilbo_ jumped down from the couch and approached wagging his tail, as if asking _“Where are we going?”_ Claire grabbed him by the collar and guided him outside the cabin. “You’re not going to like it, but you gotta get your vaccines.”

“Yeah, or he can’t stay here!” Meg shouted in their wake.

“Do you want to come in?” Castiel offered.

“Sure. We still have to discuss some details about the next race.”

Castiel figured there wasn’t going to be much discussion going, what with them sticking their tongues in each other’s mouth the second they were alone. Meg put a hand behind his head to pull him closer and Castiel pushed her against the closed door, his eyes closed as he tasted her mouth.

It had become a habit – a bad habit, actually – whenever there was no one around. It was stupid and immature, to steal kisses like that or sometimes to make out like horny teenagers in the stables where the only ones who could see them were the horses or behind a column in the main house’s porch, or against a tree near the creek when they rode there. It was a matter of time until they got caught, even if they made it a point to stop it before anyone could see them. Castiel had the theory they wouldn’t feel compelled to do it if they didn’t have to hide in front of everybody else, but of course they had both agreed that wasn’t possible. For the time being, Castiel added sometimes in his head.

Meg patted him on the cheek and he stepped backwards. They were both heaving and Meg had a huge grin across her face.

“That’s very nice, Cas, but what will Claire say if she finds us like this?”

“Nothing pretty, I’m sure,” he admitted and reluctantly let go of Meg’s waist.

She took two steps inside the cabin and looked at the mess on the table.

“Are you making dinner? Andrea will be disappointed.”

“No, actually, I’m just carving a pumpkin,” he explained, as he turned it around for Meg to see its face.

“You do realize that no child comes this far out of town for trick-or-treating, right?”

“It’s the spirit of the holiday,” Castiel groaned and sighed, defeated. He leaned on the chair with both hand hanging unto it, because he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t try to touch Meg again, especially when she was coming to stand so close to him. “Doesn’t matter. What details haven’t we gone over already?”

“None, everything’s ready,” she replied, putting her hand on his chest and smiling up at him. “Dr. Richardson says _Morningstar_ should have no problem getting on the plane and the horse transportation people will be picking him up in the morning.”

Castiel waited. If Meg was so confident, but she still came all the way there, then it meant there was something underneath it all. She shrugged and cracked a smile at him.

“I just wanted to see you.”

“Did you now?” Castiel asked. He looked down at her and suddenly realized the reason for her being so frisky. “Are you getting nervous already? We still have four days to go.”

“I know.” Meg cringed. “It’s just… honestly, I think it might start to become a problem. This one’s big, Cas, it’s really big money and if we manage to win it…”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Castiel assured her, grabbing her hand. He placed a quick peck on the back of it. Meg’s lips twitched in a mocking expression, but she said nothing about.

“Well, if my lucky charm says so,” she said, standing so close Castiel had to open his legs so she could stand between them.

“We’re not winning because we’re lucky,” he replied. “We’re winning because we’ve trained and we have the best horse. Those are the things you need to focus on.”

Meg made a noncommittal sound and kept leaning closer as if she was going to kiss him again. Castiel had to talk fast before all his thoughts got completely scattered.

“Claire is… going to a party on Halloween. I’ll be alone.” The words almost crashed with one another as they came out of his mouth. “You could… come spend the night with me and, uh… because we’re leaving early in the morning, so… I just thought…”

“We said not here, Cas,” Meg reminded him, crooking an eyebrow.

“I know,” he muttered, lowering his gaze. “I’m sorry, it was just an idea.”

Meg remained in silence another moment. She didn’t let go of his hand as he was expecting her to do.

“I guess I can come down after Andrea and Benny go to sleep.”

Castiel didn’t have to answer, because she stepped away right as the door clicked open and an offended _Bilbo_ strutted in followed closely by Claire. The dog returned to his spot on the couch and sat down with a sad sigh.

“Oh, stop it. Nobody likes to have needles stuck in their butt,” Claire told him.

“Okay, I guess it mean that Amelia’s done,” she commented, turning around to head for the door. “See you at dinner.”

She closed the door in her wake and it was as if she had never been there to begin with. She was much better at pretending than Castiel or maybe his face was still flushed from the kiss and from Meg’s accepting his invitation, because Claire turned to him and commented:

“Woah. That bad, huh?”

“It’s, uh… it’s an important race,” he explained hastily.

“I’m starting to think all races are life or death to her,” Castiel said, rolling her eyes and Castiel had to smile. She wasn’t entirely wrong.

“You sure you don’t want to carve?” he asked, fishing the second pumpkin from underneath the table and putting it up. “It could be fun.”

Claire looked at the pumpkin as if she was trying with all her might to resist it, but in the end, she shrugged.

“Yeah, what the hell,” she said, sitting in front of it and grabbing a knife. “Carving pumpkins for people who won’t even see them. Not the weirdest thing I’ve done on Halloween.”

 

* * *

 

Meg showed up half an hour after Claire’s car had disappeared down the road. Castiel wondered if she, like him, had been watching from the window to make sure she didn’t came back or if she was just waiting for Andrea and Benny to go to sleep so she could sneak out through the back door.

In any case, there she was now, with a wheeled suitcase instead of her usual duffle bag and the same smirk as always.

“Hey,” she greeted him, stepping inside.

“Hello,” he said. “Uh, do you wanna leave you bag here or in the room…?”

“You’re wasting no time, eh?” she asked with a chuckle. She left the bag next to the couch before she flailed down on it. “Do you have anything to drink?”

“Sure, yes, I’ve got, uh… water or juice… or beer.”

Meg tilted her head at him and Castiel knew right away that she was not going to drink beer two days before a competition.

“Trying to get me drunk, Cas?” she asked instead,

“Do I have to?”

She let out a hearty laugh. “No, I guess you don’t.”

Castiel filled two glasses with orange juice and tried to determine why the hell he was so nervous. It was Meg. It really didn’t make any difference if she was at his home or if they were in a motel somewhere after a race, the results would still be the same. They had already skipped the preliminaries to sex (the dating, the flirting) a couple of times before This wasn’t a date and he was sure that the mere suggestion that it was would make her either leave while slamming the door in her wake or laugh in his face uncontrollably. Neither option was good, so he had to keep his cool.

Mg was examining the pictures on the sideboard when he came back with the drinks.

“Is that your brother?” she asked, even though Castiel was sure it was completely unnecessary. He and Jimmy had been so physically similar that many people thought they were twins. But he thought he understood the point of Meg asking that: she wanted to give him the option not to talk about it.

“Yes, Jimmy. And that’s Amelia, Claire’s mom.”

“You all seemed pretty close,” she commented, pointing at a picture with the four of them. They were standing around a Christmas tree, with Claire, who must have been twelve at the time, ripping the wrapping paper of an enormous book he had brought for her. That had been about three years before the accident that had taken Jimmy and Amelia’s lives.

“We were. I mean, they lived in Illinois, I lived in New York. But I tried to visit them for the holidays, I tried to be a part of Claire’s life. Except when she moved in with me I found out I knew her less than I thought, but I still did what I could to give her a home… I’m sorry, this isn’t the most enticing topic.”

He lowered his gaze and tried to hide his awkwardness by taking a sip from his juice. Meg, however, was staring up at him with big brown eyes and a smirk on her face.

“No, don’t be,” she told him. “You’re faithful to your family. I like that about you.”

That surprised him. Meg wasn’t the kind to come out and just say something as sensitive as that. She was more of the flirting and joking type. Was it because they were in a different, somewhat more personal context…?

Or perhaps there wasn’t a difference, because after taking a gulp of her juice, she put it down on the coffee table and turned to him with her usual smirk.

“So… are we going to bed early or there’s something you’d like to do before?”

Castiel really didn’t have anything planned. He also put his glass away and opened his arms for Meg to step into them. She started nuzzling his neck and he closed his eyes, enjoying the tingling of her hot breath over his skin.

“Been waiting all week for this,” she commented, hooking a finger in the hem of his jeans to pull him closer.

“Me too,” Castiel replied, sincerely. He placed a hand on her lower back and moved the other to tangle his fingers in her hair. “This whole being discreet thing is a bit of a torture.”

Meg’s laughter was almost a purr.

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. She cocked her head at him. “But that makes it all the better, don’t you think?”

She nibbled his lower lip and his breath got caught in his throat. Without thinking too much about it, he lifted her up. Meg laughed as she wrapped her legs around his waist while he carried her to his bedroom.

Having her laying back on his bed, with her head spread through the pillow, her eyes closed and her neck up as if she was begging him to kiss it was a better than in even Castiel’s wildest dreams. His heart was beating fast as he pulled her shirt up and he had to take a deep breath when doing that revealed a red lace bra, with a little bow in the middle.

“See anything you like?” she said. Her mischievous smirk indicated she knew exactly what he was seeing.

Castiel leaned down to kiss her, but caught her hand when she tried to reach for the buttons of his shirt.

“No,” he muttered, pinning her hand above her head and relishing a moment in her confusing. He was so rarely got to take her by surprise he could hardly be blamed for enjoying it a little more than he probably should have. “I want to take my time with you tonight.”

Meg opened her mouth, perhaps to protest, but Castiel shut her up with a kiss. She struggled against him for a moment, but when his mouth found the nape of her neck and he nibbled a little there, her body arched up with a moan.

“Ugh, fine,” she conceded. “Let’s do it your way.”

Castiel smiled against her skin and busied himself with leaving a trace of kiss all along her jawline and her collarbone. Meg shifted and sighed underneath him, encouraging him with nails running down his scalp while her other hand travelled down her spine to settle right on top of his buttocks and give a little squeeze…

“Cas. Cas, stop. Stop. I can’t do this.”

“Why?” Castiel asked, immediately propping himself up to look at her. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, it’s just… the dog is staring.”

Castiel looked over his shoulder to find that indeed, _Bilbo_ was standing in the doorway, wagging his tail and looking at them with curiosity, as if he was wondering what kind of strange human game that was.

“ _Bilbo_ ,” Castiel sighed. “Go away.”

 _Bilbo_ made no attempt to move. In fact he seemed to believe that because Castiel called his name, he was allowed in the room, so he sauntered in and placed his head on the bed covers, looking up as if he was asking for permission to jump up with them.

“No, _Bilbo_. Go,” Castiel repeated. The dog clearly had no interest in listening to him, so Castiel had to get up, grabbed him by the collar and pull him out of the bedroom. He closed the door after him for good measure. “Sorry about that,” he muttered as he made his way back to the bed.

“It’s fine,” Meg chuckled. When he sat down on the bed again, she threw a leg over his knees and settled down on his lap. “Better him than someone who can speak, right?”

“Well, I don’t know. Claire is smart, she might be teaching him to speak.”

Meg chuckle and lowered her face to kiss him again. This time, when she reached for his shirt, Castiel didn’t try to stop her. She unbuttoned it with ease and rubbed her hands down his chest and unto his stomach…

“Is he… is he crying?”

Castiel paid attention and yes, indeed, there were soft whimpers coming from the other side of the door, as well as scratches as if _Bilbo_ was trying to dig a tunnel under the door through the floorboards.

“Ignore him,” Castiel suggested.

He tried to come back to what they were doing, but then a mournful howl pierced the air. Castiel closed his eyes for a second.

“Maybe he’ll get tired…”

 _Bilbo_ howled again, even louder than before and Meg groaned as she moved aside.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Just let him in before he wakes the entire ranch.”

They didn’t seem to have much of an option anyway. _Bilbo_ came into the room barking happily and jumping around, trying to stand on the bed and lick Meg’s face before he ran out and then came back in with his plush toy, which he deposited at Castiel’s feet and looked up at him, expecting him to throw it.

“No, _Bilbo_ ,” Castiel sighed. “It’s not play time.”

 _Bilbo_ decided the floor of Castiel’s bedroom was the perfect spot to chew his toy anyway.

Well, the mood was definitely ruined. They laid down on the bed side by side and they both stared at _Bilbo_ shake his toy in his mouth and trying to catch his own tail.

“See, this is why prefer horses,” Meg sighed, laying back on the bed. “They’re less needy.”

“I don’t know. I’ve met some horses who are definitely very needy.”

Meg thought about and then chortled. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Castiel smiled at her and grabbed her hand to kiss it.

“I like how you’re so passionate about everything,” he commented. “Everything you do, you put your all into it. It’s like the word impossible just doesn’t register for you.”

Meg blinked owlishly at him.

“What’s that all about?”

“Well, you said something you liked about me. I thought it was only fair I told you something I like about you.”

“Are you getting sentimental on me, Cas?” she asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, drawing circles in the back of her hand with his thumb. “Should I stop?”

Instead of answering, Meg rolled over herself and climbed into his lap once more.

“Maybe if we turn off the lights, he won’t see us,” she commented.

 _Bilbo_ had stopped chewing his toy and was now laying belly up and with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Castiel made a note to ask Claire if that was how the dog normally acted or if there was something wrong with him.

“Good thinking. Let’s try that.”


	18. Chivalry

Some years before, when her parents were still alive and she still lived in her old hometown, Claire and her friends had sneaked inside the school basement and they had tried to use an Ouija board to contact the dead. They had sat in silence with their fingers on the planchette for several minutes, shushing each other whenever they got the giggles and stayed until the smoke from the candles they had turned had activated the detectors. They had to slide out through the same broken window they had used to get in and that had been a lot easier in theory than in practice. The night had ended with them running through the neighborhood’s backyards and laughing like maniacs when they heard the sirens of the firefighter truck in the distance. They’d tiptoed back into Claire’s home and they’d sworn to secrecy forever.

That was the weirdest thing that Claire had done on Halloween. And it was also the most fun she’d ever had on the holiday. So Krissy’s party had a lot to live up to.

But even without those epic memories for comparison and even if she had wanted to go to the party, Claire was pretty sure she wasn't going to enjoy it. If it was up to her, they would all be driving to the creek right then and staying there telling ghost stories and perhaps waiting for an axe-wielding murderer to come after them. They lived in a woody area. There had to be at least one axe-wielding murderer running around.

"Come on, Claire, be serious," Alexis laughed.

"I am serious," Claire replied as she parked the Maverick in the one spot left on Krissy's entryway. "Wouldn't that get your adrenaline pumping more than watching a bunch of people dancing like idiots and making out in the corners?"

"Ah, don't worry, Claire," Ben intervened, moving forward to put his head on the back of the driver's seat. "I'm sure you can find someone to make out with before the night is over."

He pursed his lips, imitating a kiss and Claire pushed him back unto the backseat, laughing at his stupidity all the way.

"Alright, then, let's get this over with."

Despite Ben's insistence that it would be fine, they hadn't prepared any costumes and luckily for them, it didn't seem to make a difference: half of the people at the party were wearing a costume of some kind (either ears or a mask or something like that) while the other half was donning normal clothes just like them. Krissy herself was wearing a blouse and a skirt and approached them with cups of punch upon seeing them arrive.

"Hey, so great you guys could come!" she said, speaking loudly to make herself heard over the music.

Claire recognized a song by Twenty One Pilots and decided maybe the party wouldn't be so lame after all. At least Krissy seemed to have good taste in music. People were chatting in groups of three or four, eating chips from bowls and laughing around the living room. Some others were sitting in the porch or dancing in the backyard. Ut didn't look like the entire school was there, so it wasn't too crowded for her to want to bolt five seconds in. She counted that as an advantage. She took a drink from her cup and watched Alexis sway her hips to the rhythm of the song. Perhaps that night wasn't going to be as terrible as Claire had made it out to be.

"Ben, you're going to have to dance with the two of us," Alexis determined, as she dragged them both to the backyard.

"No!" Claire complained.

"Yeah, that sounds like recipe for double the stepped on toes," Ben agreed for once. "Let's just stay here and talk."

"You guys are boring!" Alexis said, rolling her eyes and looked around. She localized a black-haired boy leaning against the wall and apparently alone. "Hey, Aiden! You want to dance?"

Aiden (who Claire barely remembered from their Chemistry class) blinked at her, as if he was startled by her directness, but he recovered quickly. He put his cup down with a "Sure" and grabbed Alexis by the hand to guide her to the group of people moving and grinding against each other. Claire had to contain a dry heave.

"She's so cool," Ben commented, with a sigh. "Honestly, I don't even know why she hangs with us. We're such losers."

"Hey, speak for yourself. I'm not a loser," Claire replied.

"Well, you've been here for months and you've made exactly two friends, so the jury's still out on that..."

Claire punched him slightly on the biceps.

"I'll have you know, I was voted the freaking Winter Queen at my old school."

"Maybe because they were trying to tell you you're a stone cold bitch," Ben snorted.

"That's... that's actually a nice compliment. Thank you," Claire replied, sticking her chin up in the air as if she wanted to show the world her newly appointed status.

"Okay, but what happened to you?" Ben asked laughing. "How did you go from Winter Queen to... person who sits out against the wall at parties with his loser friend? And I am a loser, don't even try to tell me otherwise."

"Oh, I wasn't going to."

Ben put a hand over his chest and made a horrified face, as if Claire had just stabbed him right in the heart. She giggled and shook her head.

"Doesn't really matter how it happened. Guess standing here with you makes me a loser by association," she said, with a little shrug.

"Well, aren't you glad we can be losers together while our cool friend does cool things?" Ben said.

Alexis was spinning and laughing while moving so fast Aiden could barely keep up with her. He was smiling like a fool and Claire guessed that, if he didn't have a crush on her before, he probably did now. Her guts knotted unpleasantly at the perspective, but what could she really say to that? Alexis seemed happy and that was what really mattered.

She was about to say something of the sort (except less gay, because goddammit, why was that part of her brain active when she didn't want it to be?) when Krissy came running out into the backyard, looking around like she was a bit freaked out.

"Hey, what's going on?" Ben asked her as they both approached her.

"Uh, where's Alexis?" Krissy asked, pulling from the helm of her shirt, nervously. "I have to tell her… Ben, I didn't invite them, I swear."

Ben opened his mouth, maybe to ask who she meant, but a second later it became completely clear why Krissy was so freaked: Henry the Major Douche and two of his less douchy but still pretty awful friends strutted into the backyard as if they owned the place. They were wearing leather jackets and (Claire had to blink twice to make sure) body glitter on their faces. Henry looked around with a self-sufficient smirk that was enough to make anyone despise the very concept of smiling, but his face went livid when he saw Alexis dancing with Aiden. Claire didn't need anyone to tell her that wasn't going to end well.

Before anyone could react, Henry strode towards Alexis and yanked her by the arm, away from the circle of people dancing.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked.

"What the hell are _you_ doing?" Alexis repeated back at him, trying to slip out of his grip. "Let me go. What's wrong with you?"

"Why are you dancing with this sissy?" Henry continued, turning his glare towards Aiden.

Aiden immediately raised his arms and stepped back, pure fear in his features.

"Look, man, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were back together..."

"We're not back together!" Alexis replied, pushing Henry away. Claire didn't think she was strong enough for him to really be affected by it, but apparently he had drunk something, because he staggered back and let of Alexis' arm. "Henry, get away from me! I told you, I want nothing to do with you anymore!"

Claire and Ben were trying to get to her by this point, but it was hard because they had to push through the crowd that had decided this drama was far more interesting than their conversations or their dancing. Krissy was paralyzed with terror that the argument would spiral out of control, so she couldn't tell everybody to move along. Claire stepped on toes and elbowed people on the ribs, not caring if they gave her the evil eye afterwards. Her friend was in trouble, she had to go to her friend.

"Oh, come on, again with that bullshit?" Henry said, rolling his bloodshot eyes. His speech wasn't slurry, but Claire could practically smelled the booze in his breath. "I already apologized! Why can't you let it go?"

"Hey, asshole," Ben said, the second he could step out of the circle of people and flank Alexis. "She told you to get lost."

"Seriously, Alex?" Henry scoffed. "These are the beta cucks you changed me for?"

"I have no idea what you just said, but I don't like your tone."

"Ben, come on." Claire put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. "He's drunk. Don't get on his level."

"You need your girlfriend to defend you, Braeden?" Henry taunted. "Some man you are."

"No, he doesn't need me to defend him, you pathetic Edward Cullen wannabe," Claire replied. "He just needs me to dial the police station number and get Sheriff Mills to come here. What do you think she's going to do when she sees you’re drunk and harassing her daughter, huh?"

That gave Henry enough food for thought that Claire could gently pushed Alexis towards the opening were starting to make for them. She was pale and clearly trembling underneath her hands. Claire could feel the blood boiling in her veins, but all she could do was get Alexis out of there and maybe into one of the rooms upstairs until they found a way to kick Henry out…

“Whatever, bitch,” he said. “Why don’t you do like your parents and kill yourself?”

It was stupid. Claire knew it was stupid. He was trying to get to her using what he knew would hurt the most. He was drunk and a jerk and she shouldn’t get on his level.

She only thought about those things later.

What happened right then was that her face caught on fire and she turned around so fast she almost pushed another person out of the way right before her knuckles crashed right against Henry’s nose, with enough force that she heard them crack over the tomb-like silence in the yard. But it was worth it just to see Major Douche staggering backwards, probably more startled than he was hurt, covering his nose like a little coward.

“Woah, okay, we’re not doing that!” Ben said, grabbing her by the arm to pull her away. “Claire, come on…”

“Stop it right now! I called the station!” Krissy said, raising her cellphone in the air. “Sheriff Mills is coming, so you all need to stop!”

Henry glared at Claire with pure hatred in his eyes, but he groaned at his asshole buddies and they were out of there in the blink of an eye.

Sadly, they weren’t the only ones. The entire business had bummed everybody out and apparently, the threat of having an adult (and a cop on top of it) was enough to curb their enthusiasm for partying. Krissy later confessed she had lied about that knowing it would end the party abruptly just because she was scared things would escalate.

“This was supposed to be a good time,” she groaned as they were all sitting in the kitchen table. “I’m really sorry, Alexis, I have no idea how he found out about this.”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” Alexis smiled at her, even though it was clearly she was still a bit shaken. “It was… it was actually pretty awesome,” she chuckled, turning towards Claire.

“Yeah, well,” Claire muttered and tried to laugh it off casually. “He was being a dick.”

“Okay, put your hand here,” Ben said, placing a bowl full of water and ice cubes next to Claire. “Should help with the pain.”

Claire tried to keep a neutral expression on as she sank her hand, but she still couldn’t help a sigh of relief.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, God, it’s not broken, is it?” Krissy asked. “Do we have to drive you to the E.R.?”

“It’s fine. Henry just happens to have an incredibly thick skull,” Claire said. To her satisfaction, Alexis chuckled again.

“Actually, I don’t think his skull is thicker than any normal person,” Ben intervened, pushing his glasses up his nose. “You’re just not supposed to use your knuckles when you’re decking someone. You should use the palm of your hand or your wrist, they’re harder. My dad taught me,” he added, lowering his gaze as the girls stared at him.

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind next time I have to hit someone,” Claire replied. “Like, next time I’m defending Alexis’ honor or something.”

The comment was enough to finish releasing the tension in the room. They all laughed again, longer and lighter this time, and for a second, Claire didn’t have to think about what she’d just did. She didn’t have to think about how she was going to return home with bruised knuckles and how it was very unlikely Henry was going to let go of the fact a girl had hit him in front of half the school. For now, though, Alexis was hailing her as a hero of sorts and they were laughing with their friends and that was enough.

“Oh, damn, you were right,” Alexis admitted in the end. “I mean, no offense, Krissy, but we should have gone to hang out at the cliffs.”

“Well, the night’s still young,” Ben said with a shrug. “You wanna go?”

“Sure, let’s do it! You coming?” Claire asked Krissy, because it just felt rude to make plans in front of her without inviting her.

“No, it’s fine. I have to clean up a bit here. You guys go.”

There was kind of a sad look in her eyes, something that made Claire feel they should have said something else. Perhaps they should have offered to help Krissy clean up and then take her to the cliffs with them. Perhaps they should have offered to stick around just for a while, to keep her company. But she was too slow in realizing this, and by the time she brought it up, they were already driving down the dirt road that led to the cliffs.

“Well, I mean, Krissy must feel a little lonely,” Ben admitted. “Her mom died a few years back, her dad’s not home a lot and she doesn’t have all that many friends. Well, she had Josephine but she went to college, so…”

“And you happen to know all of this and you didn’t think about insisting she came along?”

Despite the darkness of the road, Claire could make out the expression in Ben’s face, as if he too had just been punched in the face.

“Oh, fuck, I didn’t think about that.”

“Well, we’ll just invite her to hang out with us next time,” Alexis said. “It’s no biggie.”

They parked the car behind the trees line and stepped outside. Claire had thought there would be a lot more people there, couples making out and stuff, but apparently, everybody had gone home or somewhere else after Krissy’s party. And besides, the night was a bit chilly. Alexis hugged herself as they walked to sit on the big rock over the creek that constituted “the cliff” itself. Before Claire could offer her a jacket, Ben put an arm around each of their shoulders and pulled them closer.

“Don’t worry, girls,” he said, smiling smugly. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“If you push us from this rock, Benjamin Braeden, I swear I will hold your head underwater until you fucking drown,” Claire threatened him.

“Right, keeping us warm,” Alexis snorted. “You couldn’t even fight Henry to keep me safe.”

“What, you wanted me to fight Henry? ‘Cause I can totally fight Henry,” Ben said. “Give me his number, I’ll call him right now and we’ll set a time and a day.”

“He’s captain of the basketball team. You’re a nerd who eats too many cheeseburgers,” Claire pointed out, poking Ben on the side of his belly. “He’ll choke you in no time flat.”

“I know that, but still, I can show some chivalry. I actually think it was very chivalrous of me to prevent you from hitting Henry again.”

They laughed out loud for a while and then fell silent, listening to the wind rustling on the trees’ branches and the rumor of the water as it passed right underneath them.

“It was actually pretty brave,” Alexis whispered.

“Me stopping Claire?”

“No, Claire taking on Henry,” Alexis clarified. “I mean… no one had ever done anything like that for me before.”

Claire shifted a little. She probably shouldn’t feel as happy as she did that Alexis was admiring she almost got into a fight, but she couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, well,” she muttered. “It was nothing.”

 

* * *

 

“Cas. Hey, Cas, wake up.”

Castiel groaned at the voice talking to him through the fog of his sleep. He knew, somewhere, in the back of his mind, that he had to get up early, that he had another long trip with Meg, first to the airport and then on a six hour flight to the other side of the country. At least they wouldn’t be driving an entire day…

“Cas, come on, we’re going to lose our flight.”

“It leaves at noon,” Castiel mumbled, irritated and snuggled further into the sheets.

He had what felt like an entire hour of peace in his mind, but in reality it must have been just a couple of minutes. There was hot breath spilling on his back and Castiel figured Meg was trying to wake him up by way of sex. Which was actually a nice way to start the day, to be honest. He smiled to himself and rolled over to get a kiss…

… only for a hot, wet, large tongue to slide up on his entire face.

Castiel jolted awake with gasp of disgust and rubbed his arm to try to get the stench of dog food from sliding up in his nose. Meg was standing by the bed, holding _Bilbo_ over him and laughing way too loud for his taste.

“I knew this sack of fleas was good for something,” she commented.

“That wasn’t funny,” Castiel groaned.

“Really? I thought it was hilarious.” She put _Bilbo_ down and placed a hand on her hip. She was only wearing the same red lace combination from the night before and Castiel had to at the very least appreciate the fact that he could see it in its full glory in the early autumn light. “Do you want to take a quick shower?”

“I’ll turn on the coffee maker and join you,” he said, feeling more awake that he had in years.

“Okay.” Meg unclasped her bra and casually tossed it on the floor before sauntering to the door. “Don’t take too long.”

Castiel absolutely didn’t intend to. He fished some sweatpants from his drawer so he wouldn’t be completely naked and marched to the kitchen. This really wasn’t so bad at all. Yes, it still couldn’t be considered a relationship, but the fact Meg had agreed to spend the night and how they were laughing and going through a morning routine… it felt good. It felt amazing, actually. He usually wasn’t in such a cheery mood in the mornings, but even the fact he had woken up to _Bilbo_ ’s tongue in his nose wasn’t enough to get his spirit down.

“Here, boy,” he said, throwing a piece of bread at him. “Behave in the future and I’ll even consider giving you some bacon.”

 _Bilbo_ happily gulped down the bread and then looked up wagging his tail, expecting more. Castiel turned on the coffee maker and placed the bread on the toaster while he heard the shower running in his bathroom. He was already imagining what it would be like to have Meg in his arms again, just holding her close underneath the hot stream of water…

The cabin’s door burst open and _Bilbo_ started running madly and barking happily.

“Hey, _Bilbo_ , hey, keep it quiet,” Claire muttered. “We don’t want to wake…”

She froze when she looked up, showing Castiel what he thought must have been a perfect reflection of his own stunned and horrified expression.

“Claire!” he screamed out. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to get my dog. Also, I kind of… live here?” Claire answered, trying but not quite succeeding in looking nonchalant about this. “Why are you up so early?”

“Well… we have to… Meg and I, we have to take a flight to California!” he reminded her. “Remember? For the Breeder’s Cup!”

“Yes, I remember. I thought it left at noon,” Claire groaned, narrowing her eyes at him. “Why are you shouting?”

“I’m not shouting,” Castiel lied. “Maybe my voice just sounds louder to you because you were up all night.”

Claire seemed to hold that up for careful consideration, but ultimately she shook her head.

“No, you’re just being weird,” she decided, taking a step towards the hallway. “I’m gonna get _Bilbo_ ’s leash.”

Castiel panicked. If she went down the hallway, she would hear the shower and she would get suspicious.

“Claire!” he called out again, and when she turned to look at him (miraculously turning her back on the hall), he took to seconds too long to find an excuse to retain her there. Luckily for him, he did find one: “What happened to your hand?”

“Uh…” Clair looked down at her bruised knuckles while Castiel tried to telepathically communicate to Meg to get out of there. “Well, I… I… squeezed it against the… the door.”

The lie was so absolutely blatant the only reason Castiel pretended to believe it was because Meg had finally caught on with the situation and popped her head out of the bathroom. Her eyes open wide in horror when she realized who was standing right at the end.

“Which door?” Castiel asked, tilting his head in a way he hoped would indicate Meg what to do.

“The car’s door,” Claire continued to lie. Meg slipped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and tiptoed outside, far too slowly for Castiel’s nerves. “I had my hand on the car’s door, and I didn’t realized it, and I closed it and I squeezed it. Who’s in the shower?”

She turned around just in time for Meg to close Castiel’s bedroom door behind her. And now it was his turn to lie through his teeth.

“I am. I just… I thought I would leave it running while I made breakfast, so I could take a quick shower while the coffee got ready.”

Claire stared at him with her mouth agape.

“Seriously?” she asked and Castiel panicked even more. He was a horrible liar. She must have realized. Oh, God, and now she was marching towards the bathroom, what was he supposed to do?!

“Claire, wait!”

Claire walked into the bathroom without a second of hesitation and turned the shower off with a huff.

“Your entire generation is the reason my grandchildren will have to share the planet with giant mutant cockroaches,” she told him, exasperated. “Environmental consciousness? Hello?”

“Yes,” Castiel sighed. “You’re absolutely right. My apologies.”

Claire rolled her eyes at him some more and then, to his immense relief, she went to retrieve Bilbo’s leash from her room and his food from the kitchen cabinet.

“Alex and Ben are waiting for me outside the ranch,” she told him. “We’re going to drop him off and then we’re going to Alexis’ house where we’ll…” She stopped to let out a massive yawn.

“Sleep all day?” Castiel suggested.

“Don’t judge us just ‘cause you’re an old geezer without a social life,” she snapped back at him.

“I’m not,” Castiel said, raising his hands. “I’m actually very glad you had fun.”

Claire narrowed her eyes at him.

“You’re in too good a mood for it being this early.”

“Maybe I just decided to face the mornings with another attitude. You should give it a try,” Castiel suggested.

“Whatever,” Claire replied, signaling that conversation was over.

“I’ll call you when we land,” Castiel said, following her to the door. “Send my regards to Sheriff Mills!”

Claire showed him a thumb up while she strolled away with _Bilbo_ leaping and barking by her side. Castiel closed the door in her wake and immediately turned off the toaster before he ran to his room. His heart was still beating fast from the adrenaline of almost getting caught.

“Meg?” he called out.

Meg opened the door and looked at him with the same horrified expression she had when sneaking out of the bathroom. She had a towel closely pin to her body and her long black hair was dripping wet down her shoulders.

“She’s gone?”

“Yes,” Castiel confirmed. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t think she’d come for _Bilbo_ this early.”

Meg leaned against the door and sighed deeply, to also let out a hearty laugh right after.

“Holy shit,” she muttered between chuckles.

“This was… yes,” Castiel said, smiling as well because, well, what else could they do?

“Alright, you know what?” Meg said, shaking her head. “Let’s just get our asses to California where there are no nieces or cock-blocking dogs. We have a race to run.”


	19. Points

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The last part of this chapter contains homophobic language and depictions of bullying.

California’s weather was agreeable enough, not too hot, but Castiel felt like he was sweating like a pig while he sat on the bleachers next to other trainers and horse owners, almost eating his own program as he followed with anxious eyes the black stain that was _Morningstar_ among the other horses.

“ _The Colonel_ is still in the lead, with _Dusty Benji_ right behind him. _Tumbleweed_ is third and _Doctor Jubilee_ comes right after… _Doctor Jubilee_ passes _Tumbleweed_ and now _Tumbleweed_ and _Morningstar the Third_ are head to head in the fourth, while _The Colonel_ is left behind by _Dusty Benji_ …”

“Come on!” Castiel shouted, his heart thumping in his chest. He had his fists clenched so tight he could almost feel his nails digging into his own skin. “Come on, Meg!”

“ _Morningstar the Third_ passes _Tumbleweed_ … he passes _Doctor Jubilee_ … they’re nearing the final stretch now, _Dusty Benji_ still in the lead… it seems _Dusty Benji_ is going to take this one…”

In the distance, Castiel saw Meg waving her whip, and he held his breath.

“But no, _Morningstar_ doesn’t give up. _Morningstar_ is moving closer and he’s taking the lead! He passes _Dusty Benji_ and he crosses the finish line! _Morningstar_ wins the race!”

“Yes!” Castiel shouted, jumping up in the middle of all the applause. “Yes, come on!”

The owners and trainers were also clapping, though some of them were side-eyeing him as if he had just spit on their grandmother’s grave. Castiel couldn’t care less and maybe that said something about the kind of person he had become wince working with Meg.

“ _Morningstar_ ’s had an unbroken winning streak since he won his maiden race back in Iroquois…”

“Congratulations, son,” an owner told Castiel when he had to move. He had grey hair and beard and a pair of really unnerving blue eyes. He didn’t appear to be that old, at least not old enough to call him “son”, but Castiel was so enthralled that he couldn’t bring himself to care about people being needlessly condescending towards him.

“Thank you,” Castiel said, smiling as they shook hands. “It was… for once it would be nice if they took the lead and stayed there, you know?”

He laughed and the other man didn’t seem to get the joke.

“Well, it’s all the same,” he told him. “I’m sure _Benji_ will have the chance to get back at your boy in the Derby.”

“I’m sorry, the what?”

“The Derby,” the man repeated, crooking an eyebrow at him as if he thought Castiel was being obtuse on purpose. “The Kentucky Derby? You’re trying out for that, aren’t you?”

“Uh… yes, of course,” Castiel said, feeling really dumb and confused for not having got that right away. “Yes. Excuse me.”

He walked past the other people in the bleachers, smiling and shaking hands as gracefully as he could, his eyes fixed to the side of the track Meg and _Morningstar_ were. Meg’s smile was radiant and became even wider when she Castiel getting closer. She beckoned to him and when he was close enough, she hugged him tight. It was the most blatant display of affection she ever had towards him.

He tried to tell her something, but a moment later, they were climbing the stage for the winners and they were blinded by flashlights and people talking.

“Congratulations, Miss Masters!” a woman wearing a very elegant pantsuit and holding a microphone approached them. “And now, on behalf of the Breeder’s Cup, here is Pamela Barnes from the board of directors to present you with the trophy.”

Pamela Barnes was guided next to them by a man in a suit. She wore big black shades over her eyes and her white cane hanged from her arm as she had to use both hands to hold the trophy in the form a black horse with a leg elegantly raised in the air.

“Hello, Meg. It’s good to see you,” she greeted her candidly and extended the trophy to her. “Congrats!”

“Thank you.” Meg held the trophy up for the camera and the woman with the mic approached them again.

“This isn’t the first time you run the Breeder’s Cup but it is the first time you win, Miss Masters. How does it feel?”

“It’s really something,” Meg said. There wasn’t even a trace of her usual sarcasm in her voice. “We’re very happy. Castiel, my trainer, has done a great job and we wouldn’t be here without him.”

Castiel felt his chest swell with something akin to pride when she turned to smile at him. It only lasted a second, as then the woman asked another question:

“How about your brother? Why isn’t he here?”

To the untrained eye, the question had meant nothing to Meg. Castiel, however, noticed how the edges of her mouth tightened a little bit.

“Well, Tom couldn’t come due to personal reasons,” she replied, with a shrug. “But I’m sure he’ll be just as a delighted as I am.”

“Are you dreaming about the Triple Crown?”

“It’s a little too early to tell. _Morningstar_ is having a wonderful season and he’s a very special horse. We’ll have to see.”

“Alright, thank you very much. Congratulations again!”

There were a couple more flashes flaring in their faces and then, finally, the reporters and photographers moved along. Pamela grabbed Meg’s arm and pulled her close to kiss her on both cheeks and put an arm around her waist.

“I knew you would make a comeback,” she told her, as she started guiding them down the stage. “Hey, how long are you going to be in town? You have to come to my hotel to have lunch.”

“That would be lovely. Thank you, Pam. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Pamela smiled at them both and then grabbed the arm of his assistance to walk away. Meg turned to Castiel with the trophy still in her hand.

“This shit’s kind of heavy,” she commented, weighing the black horse in her hand. “You wanna hold it?”

“Sure, I guess.” Castiel grabbed it, but Meg didn’t let go.

Of course it was just a ploy to pull him for a kiss. But he couldn’t even be mad at her.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until much later, when he was laying on his back with Meg sitting on top of him and riding him fiercely that he remembered both _Dusty Benji_ ’s owner and the reporter’s comment. Granted, it was a strange thing to think about during sex and it wasn’t more than just a fleeting thought, as he definitely was otherwise occupied.

Meg let out one last moaned, followed by a triumphant laughter as Castiel felt his own orgasm overtake him and erase from his mind anything that wasn’t her and the way their legs tangled together and how her hair felt underneath his fingertips as she collapsed by his side. They laid together for a while, breathing heavily and with sweat drying over their skins.

And Castiel really didn’t want to get out of bed, didn’t want to leave the warm of her arms, but when Meg shifted away from him, he knew their short as usual cuddling session was over. He stood up to dispose of the condom and go to the bathroom. When he came back, he found Meg was shamelessly resting on the deck chair their room’s balcony wrapped in nothing but the bed sheets. Castiel grabbed his jeans from the floor and put them on to join her.

She’d had the right idea, he thought as he flopped down on the other deck chair. The view was spectacular there, with the pink and orange skies setting over the blackened sea. It was getting a bit chiller now, but it was still warm enough that they could hang there in very little clothes and still be comfortable.

“What are you thinking?” Castiel asked, at the risk of sounding corny,

“I’m thinking I’m two fucking million dollars richer than I was this morning,” she replied, with a face-splitting grin. She placed her legs on Castiel’s chair, even though there was plenty of space in her own. “I can keep the bank off my heels for a while, I can pay everything I owe to Richardson. And you, Benny and Andrea are getting a big Christmas bonus this year. Everything is perfect right now.”

“I’m very glad you’re happy,” Castiel said.

The stayed in silence for a while, watching the sunset. Castiel was about to suggest they could go down for dinner and maybe some champagne when Meg’s cellphone rang inside. The peace evaporated from Meg’s face.

“Do you want me to bring that to you?”

“No,” she muttered. She also made no attempt at getting up to get it and as soon as the call ended, she let out a big sigh and relaxed again in her chair. Castiel decided not to ask who it might have been.

“There are other things you can do with that money, you know?”

She slowly turned her gaze towards him. It was hard to tell whether she was surprised by his suggestion, irritated by the fact he dared make it or curious about what he meant. Castiel decided to go with the latter and tell her just what he had been thinking.

“Have you ever considered, uh… giving back to the community?”

“What community?”

“Your community,” Castiel clarified. “Northeast Haven. I’m sure there are some… worthy causes that could benefit from your help.”

She stared at him for a moment longer and started snickering.

“Really, Cas? That’s your idea of a joke?”

“It’s no joke,” he insisted. “I know the ranch is going through some financial difficulties, but maybe that is exactly why you should try to be kinder to your neighbors. They’re all just waiting for the place to collapse so Crowley can take over and build all over it.”

Meg’s smiled grew bitter when she looked at him again.

“Yes,” she hissed. “Exactly. They don’t give a damn about me, so why should I even care about them?”

“People’s perception of you is important, Meg,” Castiel argued. “Perhaps if they didn’t see you as such a… harsh person, they wouldn’t be so eager to watch you fail.”

“See, that’s exactly the problem. I am a harsh person. In fact, I am a complete bitch. It’s not my fault if they can’t deal with that.”

She sounded positively angry now and Castiel decided to drop the issue before it blew into a fight he had no interest in picking. He raised his hands in defeat.

“Alright. It was just an idea.”

“It was a stupid idea,” she snapped. She stood up and turned her back on him.

“You’re not like that, you know,” he commented and she stopped to look at him over her shoulder. “You’re not a complete bitch. You just want people to think you are.”

“Oh, and you’re an expert in me all of the sudden?”

“I’m not an expert.” He shrugged with a smile. “I just cared to spend longer than five minutes with you.”

“You’re a complete idiot, it’s what you are,” she huffed, but her words lacked their usual sharpness. It was as if Castiel had touched a nerve and she was trying with all her might not to let him know he had.

She strode into the room, dragging the sheet carelessly behind her. Castiel went after her but he didn’t say a word. If Meg was in a bad mood, the best he could do was let her be. Apologizing now would only irritate her further. So he waited for her to signal him what she wanted him to do. If she wanted him to leave her alone, perhaps he could go downstairs and use the hotel’s Wi-Fi to look into this thing that had been bothering him a little…

Meg tossed the sheet to the side and stood in the bathroom’s doorway, a hand on her hip and an eyebrow crooked.

“Are you coming in here or what?”

“Uh… I’m sorry?” he asked, a little confused. Then again, seeing Meg naked was a foolproof way to send his mind into a loop.

“I want to fuck you in the shower before dinner,” she declared bluntly. “But I don’t want to hear another word from you. I won’t stop being angry until you’ve put your mouth to better uses.”

Castiel should probably be ashamed of how easy it was for her to get him to do what she wanted. At least a little bit.

He couldn’t find it in him as he dropped his jeans and hastily followed her into the bathroom.

 

* * *

 

Meg was in a much better mood the following morning. It was a general rule of thumb, Castiel was beginning to understand, that her mood rose and sank with the sun. Perhaps he should have chosen that moment to bring up the possibility of giving back to the community. He definitely needed to keep in mind the next time he wanted to discuss a delicate issue with her.

“What are you even doing?” she asked, looking at him over the edge of her coffee cup.

“Math,” Castiel replied, biting the pen and looking at the scribbles in front of him.

He had bought both things in the hotel’s gift shop and now he was regretting it, because while the pen had a cute owl cap in it, the ink tended to fade, and the notebook’s pages were thin, so he had to be careful not to press too hard into them, lest he frayed them.

Meg leaned over to take a better look at the page and frowned.

“Are you gambling?”

“No,” Castiel said, though he could he see why she would think that, with all the horse names and numbers he had jotted down.

“Oh, good. Because if you were gambling, I would fire you in a heartbeat.”

Castiel looked at her, biting back a smile.

“I mean it, Castiel. Gambling is the reason I’m in this mess in the first damn place. So if you even dare to bet a dollar…”

“I’m not gambling,” he assured her. “Like I said, I’m just doing some… math.”

Meg squinted at him. “I still don’t like the sound of that.”

“Would you like it any better if I told you it had to do with points and the Kentucky Derby?”

“Okay, now that you put it that way, I’m pretty sure I want nothing to do with that. Forget I even asked.” She gulped down the rest of the coffee and pushed her empty cup away. “I’m going upstairs to get my bags ready, so we can leave for the airport right after I come back from my lunch with Pamela.”

“Very well,” Castiel muttered, only vaguely paying attention to her words.

“You should go oversee _Morningstar’_ s transportation.”

“I thought that was the plan all along.”

Meg made a pause long enough for him to raise his gaze at her.

“Unless, well… you want us to go together,” she said.

“To see _Morningstar_?”

“Yes. And to have lunch with Pamela afterwards.”

It was Castiel’s turned to be completely confused by her words.

“Do you… want me to go with you?”

“Well, Pamela is an old friend,” Meg replied. Castiel had the impression her eyes were shifty and her speech turned a little bit into a ramble. “I haven’t seen her in a while and I think it’s really nice of her to invite me.”

“Okay,” Castiel muttered, because that still didn’t answer his question.

Meg kept staring at him. She opened her mouth, sucked in a breath and then shook her head.

“Forget it. Let’s just do what we said we were going to do.”

“Okay,” Castiel repeated.

Meg finished her breakfast and left him with the feeling there was something he had missed in her quasi-invitation or in her words or in the context. Something he hadn’t quite got. But Meg usually was very direct and had no qualms about telling him exactly what she wanted. So it was all a little bit baffling, to say the least.

But that moment at breakfast slip from his mind with the rest of the things he still needed to do. He went to make sure _Morningstar_ didn’t give a hard time to the transportation people (he was definitely not happy with this entire being shipped across the country thing, but they finally managed to get him into the truck), called Benny to confirm the horse was on the way (“Hey, give my congrats to the boss.”) and Jody to remind her he would be picking Claire up late at night after the plane landed (“Don’t worry about anything, Cas. She’s a delight to have here. And congratulations, by the way.”)

Left with nothing better to do, he took the long way back to the hotel and stopped for a while at the beach, to watch the waves rising and crashing against the shore. There were very few people around, some of them walking barefoot on the sand or dipping their toes in the water. It occurred to him it was a very nice place and maybe next time he could bring Claire as well, if school allowed it. Of course, then they would have to rent three rooms at least. The idea made him smile.

Meg returned to the hotel with unnerving punctuality and a little tipsy (“Pamela insisted I had some appetizers,” she giggled) and then they were off to the airport. Castiel hadn’t had any alcohol, but he still slept most of the journey. When he opened his eyes again, the sun was setting among the clouds beyond their airplane’s window. The rays were coming in and glimmering on Meg’s dark hair. She had leaned over her seat and now she was peacefully slumbering with her face in his shoulder.

He couldn’t keep himself from smiling. Even if it wasn’t always easy, even if it wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it to be, he was glad to be by her side.

 

* * *

 

 _Calypso_ gave birth the week before Thanksgiving. Claire was rudely awakened by loud knocking on the cabin’s door at four o’clock in the morning. She heard her uncle and Meg talking in rushed voices in the living room, and immediately rolled over and fell asleep again. Whatever it was that was going on, she could ignore it for a couple more hours.

It felt like she’d only just closed her eyes again when her alarm clock woke her up. Groaning, Claire turned it off and turned around, but then _Bilbo_ jumped on her bed and started slobbering all over her and whimpering softly because he wanted to be let out. The last thing Claire wanted right at that moment was leave her comfortably warm bed and go to school, but it seemed the real world just wasn’t going to let up that day.

She found cold pancakes and a note from her uncle on the table telling her there was an emergency with the horses and he was needed. That stung Claire’s curiosity and she checked her clock. She had time to take her cup of coffee and go to see what the fuss was all about before she had to leave.

Dr. Richardson’s pick-up truck was parked near the paddock and Meg and Benny very leaning against the fence. Claire approached them with _Bilbo_ leaping and running around her legs.

“What’s going on?”

But really, she shouldn’t have asked because it was pretty freaking obvious. _Calypso_ , the white mare, was lying on her side on the green glass, puffing and panting heavily. Something white and viscous was coming out of her rear and upon second inspection, Claire realized it had the form of two small and thin legs with little hooves in the end. Dr. Richardson and Castiel were kneeling next to her, looking closely at them.

“It’s a little bit bigger than we expected,” Dr. Richardson said, listening to the mare’s pulse with her stethoscope. “So we’re going to have to pull it.”

And Castiel, without a trace of hesitation, rolled up his sleeves and grabbed the legs covered in the viscous white thing and started doing just that.

“Oh, God,” Claire muttered, wrinkling her nose. “That’s disgusting.”

“It’s the miracle of life, girl,” Benny said philosophically.

“Well, the miracle of life is disgusting,” Claire said.

To her surprise Meg laughed quietly at her side.

“Don’t you have school to go to?” Castiel asked.

“Yeah, but school is for losers,” Claire complained. “I’d rather stay here and watch the disgusting miracle of life.”

“Right on,” Meg said, offering her palm for Claire to high five.

“Please, do not encourage my niece to skip school,” Castiel said, still busy pulling from the legs of the little horse.

“I’m not encouraging anything. The girl is perfectly capable of making her own decisions.”

Castiel glared at her over her shoulder and Meg laughed once more. Claire wondered when the fuck they had become such good friends that they could joke like that when Castiel was elbow deep in getting a horse to give birth.

“But seriously, you should go,” Meg said. “Maybe we’ll have a little new champion by the time you come back.”

Claire had nothing to say to that, so she ordered _Bilbo_ to stay (he always tried to jump into the Maverick whenever she got on) and went on with her day. Maybe she could invite Alexis over to see the new baby horse. She probably would love that. She loved little animals and that sort of thing and she’d wanted to see the horses for a while. Perhaps it was best if she invited her now before the weather got even colder…

She was reflecting about all that stuff when she left the Maverick in the parking lot and grabbed her backpack. It was a day like any other, a cloudy Thursday where the chill of the oncoming winter was starting to make itself feel. Claire was thinking about Math and History and having lunch with her friends, as usual. She didn’t imagine it was going to end up like that.

She saw Henry and his goons standing idly at the side, but that didn’t set off any alarms either. Since the incident at Krissy’s party, it wasn’t weird to see them lurking around. They never did anything except glare at them, perhaps because Henry knew that if he dared to approach her while he still had to use a bandage on the bridge of his nose he would only remind everybody of how Claire had decked him and make a complete fool of himself.

So he stood back and did nothing and generally Alexis, Ben and Claire could completely ignore them as they went about their day. And Claire did exactly that as she headed for the school’s stairs, so distracted she almost crashed against one of the guys.

“Sorry,” Claire muttered and tried to walk past him, but the guy moved in the same direction as her, blocking her path.

“Where’s the fire?” he asked, with a toothy smile.

That was the moment Claire truly realized something was wrong.

The parking lot was practically empty, except for her, Henry and his three friends from the basketball team, the one who was blocking her path and two others flanking him as they crowded up on her.

“What is it, bitch?” Henry asked, with a smug smile on his face. “You ain’t so mean when you’re all alone, are you?”

His friends snickered menacingly. Claire’s heart started beating fast in her chest as she looked around, trying to find a teacher or her friends or someone – _anyone_ – who happened to be looking her way and notice her alarm. She squared up her shoulders and begged to all the gods she knew about that she wasn’t growing pale and that her voice didn’t come out trembling when she spoke:

“What do you want, Henry?”

“I think you know,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “You made me look like an idiot in front of Alexis.”

“Well, dude, no offense, but I don’t think you needed any help with that,” Claire said, carefully rolling her eyes so he wouldn’t see how her knees were growing weak and how she looking for a way out of the enclosure his friends had surrounded her with. “Get the fuck out of my way.”

She tried to move again, but these assholes were coordinated. They blocked her path once more, so she had no choice but to turn around and face Henry.

“She doesn’t even want to have anything to do with you anymore,” she pointed out, with an exasperated huff. “Why are you so obsessed with her?”

“Why are you? Why do you even care?” Henry retorted. “Were you trying to earn points with her or something? What are you, some sort of dyke?”

The word sent a shiver down Claire’s back. Her hands started trembling, no matter how tight she hanged onto the strap of her backpack, and the blood fled from her face, leaving her feeling a little bit dizzy. And to her great dismay, realization dawned on Henry’s face as he kept looking at her.

“You are, aren’t you?” His laughter sounded dry and sinister, like a hyena’s, and Claire found out she was out of breath. She needed to get out of there. She needed to run away. Her lungs were empty and Henry’s fingers were on her shoulders and his awful grin was right in her face, like that of a predator about to bite. “Oh, that’s just too good! Does Alexis know you’re crushing on her, like a creep? Do you think she’ll let you stay at her house if she knew what a pervert you are?!”

He was practically screaming in her face and Claire was paralyzed. Every little thing she feared Alexis would say or think about her, everything she already thought about herself, said out loud like that was almost too much to bear. It _was_ too much. She couldn’t take it. She had to get the hell out right now. She gave a push, but Henry barely moved, the grasp on her shoulder becoming painfully tight now.

“Maybe you’re such a freak because you’ve never had a good one,” he commented, still laughing with that horrible hyena laughter. “How about my boys and I show you a good time? Come on, we might even be able to fix you.”

His breath was on her face and finally Claire’s instincts kicked in. She kneed him on the stomach (a little north of where she was aiming) and turned around.

“Grab her!” Henry groaned and someone did: a hand with an iron grip close around her wrist, but Claire was in a complete state of panic by that point. She heard more than felt her jacket tearing at the seams and as soon as she had some little room, she fled blindly as fast as her feet could carry her, up the stairs and through the hallways.

She was vaguely aware they were people there and they could help, but maybe they wouldn’t and that would be even more terrifying. Someone shouted at her, but she paid no attention. The only thing she could hear were the steps coming behind her and at that point she didn’t know whether they were real or imaginary anymore. She just needed to get away. She needed to hide where they couldn’t follow her.

Her eyes fixed on the bathroom sign. She practically slammed on the door and dived into the first stall. She locked the door behind her and sat on the toilet, panting and trying to collect herself. Her cheeks were wet and her heart was almost jumping out of her chest. She covered her mouth with her sleeve and suffocated a sob at the same time she held her knees up to her chest so no one would see she was there. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t go out. They could still be there, with their grabby hands and their hyena laughter and…

Her backpack was on the side of the toilet. Somehow, miraculously, she hadn’t dropped it in her hurry. She reached inside it, moving aside notebooks and her pencil case and her umbrella and why the fuck did she have so much garbage in there? She only needed…

Her fingers graze the side of her cellphone and she let out a deep breath as she pulled it out. She unlocked the screen and without a second thought, she pushed the S. O. S. button.

She regretted that decision almost instantly. Castiel would get unnecessarily worried about her now. She needed to calm down when he called, make up an excuse or tell him she had pressed the button by mistake. He couldn’t know just how much she had messed up…

The cellphone vibrated and Castiel’s face flashed on the screen. Claire took in a shaky breath and pressed to answer.

“Hello?”

“Claire? What happened? Are you okay?”

Claire opened her mouth to lie to him that she was…

… and all it came out was a strangled sob. She could do nothing to contain all the ones that came afterwards.


	20. Soul-Searching

Castiel wasn’t a person who was prone to outbursts of anger. He really wasn’t. He prided himself in being a pacifist, always trying to look for the fairest solution and to keep his head clear when a tense situation arose. Usually, he was the person you could count on being collected while the rest of the room went into complete disarray.

Usually.

That day he was perfectly willing to kill someone and he didn’t particularly cared if it was Principal Sands, the kids that had bullied Claire or their parents. Maybe he would cut to the chase and kill all of them just to be sure.

“My niece calls me crying from the bathroom because of what these boys did and you tell me that she is going to get punished as well?!”

“Please, don’t yell, Mr. Novak,” said Principal Sands. “Claire did miss her first period of classes…”

“So she’s just supposed to shrug it off when someone hurts her, is that what you’re telling me?”

“It was just a harmless prank,” Principal Sands said, with her eyebrows raised, as if she was asking ‘ _Well, what else you want me to do?_ ’. Castiel had to suppress the impulse of grabbing her by the shoulder and shaking her until he got some sort of human reaction of that stone-faced awful redheaded woman.

Because that ‘harmless prank’ meant having to hear Claire sobbing and crying in a way that had broken his heart, having to listen to her scared and alone when he had promised himself that would never happen again. It had meant dropping everything he was doing, leaving Benny and Dr. Richardson to figure out the mess of the newborn filly and driving to the town just a little underneath the speed limit so he could get to Claire faster. It had meant he almost got himself landed in jail because he wasn’t thinking clearly and he didn’t remember it wasn’t appropriate for a middle-aged guy to burst into the girl’s bathroom of a high school until Meg had grabbed him by the shoulder and reminded him so.

“Okay, Cas, calm down,” she’d told him. “Let me talk to her, okay? I’ll bring her out and then we can try to figure out what happened here.”

Castiel was fuming so much he didn’t even realize how strange the fact she was there was. He vaguely remembered telling her that Claire was in trouble and Meg jumping in the car with him because “she knew the principal” and could be of help. He didn’t even question why she wanted to help him at all. He didn’t question it, because all that mattered was that Claire needed him right then.

It had taken one agonizing minute until Meg had come out from the bathroom, holding Claire by the arm. His niece had her face red and wet and her eyes puffy. She had, without a second hesitation, dove into Castiel’s arms and hid her face in his chest to keep on crying. And that was about the moment Castiel decided someone was going to have to pay dearly for this.

It had taken more crying and some threatening from Principal Sands that if she didn’t tell them what was wrong she would assume nothing was before Claire coughed up this boy Henry’s name. She didn’t know any of his friend’s names and of course, the little shit wasn’t going to let up.

“Please, Principal Sands, it was just a joke,” he’d said, with his little dimply smile and his hands up in the air, the very image of the privileged little boy who had no clue how much damage he had just caused or he plainly didn’t care. “I’ll apologize to Claire.”

“See? He’ll apologize and this can all be settled,” Henry’s father had said. He was as bad, if not worse, than his son, with his tailored black suit and his tie and his haircut perfectly split in two. He never even looked at Castiel, just kept typing away in his cellphone like he had absolutely nothing to do with this entire ordeal. “Can we cut to the chase? I’m still on banking hours, you see.”

Castiel was about to call for his head when Principal Sands delivered the last straw: that both Henry and Claire were going to be punished equally. Castiel was pretty sure the entire school could her him screaming at the top of his lungs for the next five minutes.

“No, this will not be settled just like that!”

“Enough!” Principal Sands said, standing up. “I won’t tolerate you talking to me in this tone of voice, Mr. Novak. Now you and Mr. Weiler are both going to get out of my office before I decide to extend both your children’s suspensions.”

And really, there was that. Mr. Weiler practically hauled Henry out of the room while smiling like a shark and saying something along the lines of “We’ll see you at the PTA, Josie”. Castiel followed them, ready to bite their heads off, but they must have perceived those were his intentions because they were at the other end of the hallway by the time he stepped out.

“Cas, what happened?” Meg asked. She and Claire were sitting on the bench right outside. Claire was leaning against Meg’s shoulder and she had an arm around her, as if she had been consoling her all that time. Claire had stopped crying, but her eyes were bloodshot and when she looked up at Castiel, she seemed immensely tired.

“Principal Sands says she’s going to suspend Claire for skipping her classes,” Castiel informed them, clenching his fists.

“I really don’t care,” Claire croaked. “Can’t we just go home?”

Castiel took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

“Yes, of course. We’re going home right now.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and took two steps before he realized Meg wasn’t following them.

“Give me five minutes,” she said, and she sauntered into the Principal’s office as if she owned the place.

Castiel didn’t know what she planned on doing with that and he really didn’t care. He guided Claire to the parking lot and open the backseat door for her. He was about to walk around the car when Mr. Weiler showed up, seemingly out of nowhere, still with that toothy smile that Castiel wanted to make disappear with a single punch to the face.

“Hey, Novak,” he greeted him, as if they were old friends. “Can we talk for a second?”

“I don’t believe there’s anything to say,” Castiel replied, coldly. “Good day.”

He was about to turn around and get inside the car to wait for Meg when a hand came to rest on his shoulder.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Weiler said, still smiling like he had no care in the world. “You know, this wasn’t really that bad. Girls sometimes overreact, don’t they?”

Castiel kept staring at the man and then over the man’s shoulder. The parking lot appeared to be pretty empty, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some hidden witnesses somewhere.

“You can’t really be mad at Henry,” Weiler continued, blissfully unaware that he was four words away from getting himself killed. And then, like the douchebag he was, he just had to go ahead and say them anyway: “Boys will be boys…”

Castiel wasn’t exactly sure what happened next. All he knew was that suddenly he was holding Weiler by the lapels, slamming him against the car and practically snarling in his face.

“Cas!” somebody shouted, but he paid no mind.

“You listen to me,” Castiel said, lowering his tone so Weiler knew he meant every single word of what he was saying. “If your dick-headed son ever comes close to my niece again – if he even _looks_ at her wrong…”

“Cas, come on,” the voice insisted. It was Meg. He didn’t know how she got there so fast, but her hand was on his forearm and she was definitely trying to pry him away from Weiler. “He’s not worth it.”

Castiel stilled his breath. She was right, of course. But he still wanted to hurt him, he still wanted to even give him an inch of retribution for what his idiot son had put Claire through. But looking at his wide eyes and the pathetic whimpers he was letting out, it became far too obvious this man was going to respond to (more) physical violence just cowering and then telling everyone who would listen how Castiel had assaulted him.

And he needed to be out of jail at least until Claire graduated.

“… I will sue you,” he finished, loosening the bit of the grip he had around Weiler’s lapels. “I will sue you for everything you have and your precious golden boy will have to be a janitor in this very same school and watch as all his friends graduate, because I will take away every penny you have saved for his education. Am I making myself clear?”

Weiler swallowed and nodded shakily. Castiel breathed and finally let go off him, stepping backwards just so that he could run away like he clearly wanted to.

“Okay, I think it’s about time we all went home,” Meg determined.

“Yes,” Castiel growled.

“What the hell was that all about?” Claire asked, looking at him with wide eyes as Castiel behind the wheel.

“An example you should never try to follow,” Castiel admitted.

 

* * *

 

 _Bilbo_ welcomed them to the house barking and wagging his tail, with an enthusiasm that wasn’t at all appropriate for the mood. Claire patted him in the head and let him follow her into her room, where she promptly flopped down on the bed and curled up in a ball. She hadn’t said a word since they had left the school’s parking lot, no matter how much Castiel had tried to get her to speak.

That silence worried him. Everything about the situation worried him, in fact.

“Would you like me to make you hot cocoa?” he offered. Claire shrugged a little, as if she didn’t really care if she received any cocoa or not. _Bilbo_ , maybe sensing her state, put his paws up on the bed with her and tried to lick her face. “Alright, I’ll make you some.”

In the time it took him to come back with the cocoa, Claire had scooted just a little so _Bilbo_ could snuggle against her. The dog was still trying to get her to pay attention to him, but since Claire didn’t even seem to have the strength to pet him, he simply curled up against her, whimpering lightly. Castiel put the hot cocoa on the night table and sat down on the bed with them.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he offered, brushing Claire’s hair aside to try to see her face. She was apathetic and the only response she gave him was another little shrug. “You don’t have to talk about it right now…”

“I don’t want to talk about it ever,” Claire snapped and turned her face to hide it on the pillow.

“Okay, that’s… that’s fine,” Castiel said, even though the tug in his chest indicated him that it wasn’t fine, at all. How could it be fine if she was aching and he couldn’t really do anything to help her? “But if you change your mind, I’m here for you. I’m here for whatever you need, Claire.”

Claire didn’t answer. She didn’t even look at him.

Castiel sighed and stood up. There was no point in trying to force a conversation Claire simply had no interest in and it would only end up with her yelling at him to leave her alone. He patted her in the shoulder and closed the door on his way out. He stayed right outside, but there was no sound coming from inside, so ultimately, he walked down the hall and… stood into the kitchen looking into the void for five minutes straight, not entirely sure what to do with himself. He started putting away the milk and the cocoa jar, but truly he was doing it automatically, without even thinking about it.

There was a knock on the door, and to his surprise, Meg was right outside, holding what seemed to be a platter of smoking red velvet cupcakes.

“Andrea thought these could cheer Claire up,” she explained.

She looked sheepish, her gaze alternating between her shoes and Castiel, almost as if she half expected him to tell her to go away. Castiel wasn’t going to do such thing, of course.

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate them when she feels like eating. Please, come in.”

“How is she?” Meg asked, as she left the cupcakes on the counter.

“Still a little shaken,” he told her.

“And how are you?”

“That’s really not of import.”

Meg crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him with a crooked eyebrow, as if to indicate she didn’t believe that. At all. Well, it was really hard to argue with her when she could read his thoughts so easily. Castiel sighed deeply and sat down on the chair before rubbing his temples.

“She was doing so well,” he groaned. “She was going to school and hanging out with her friends and… I’m afraid she’ll just…”

“Come on, Cas,” Meg said, moving to sit down by his side. She put a hand on his forearm and another on his cheek, gently moving his head so he would look at her. “She’s a tough girl. She’ll bounce back from this.”

“I really hope so. The entire reason we moved here was so she could bounce back from… her bad experiences.”

“Really?” Meg asked, crooking an eyebrow. “Losing your parents it’s not like breaking your leg, you know. It doesn’t just go away.”

“I know that,” Castiel muttered.

What he didn’t say was that Claire had been managing her grief pretty well. She’d talked to a therapist and she wasn’t okay, obviously, but he believed she was going to get there eventually. And then this other… thing had happened that had thrown a wrench into all of that and he couldn’t help but to blame himself for it. He had spent many days and waking nights with the guilt of knowing he could have done more to protect her gnawing at him. But he knew that as bad as he felt about it, Claire must have been feeling a thousand times worse, so he gritted his teeth and did all the best he could for her.

And as close as he and Meg had become, he couldn’t really confide that in her, not without betraying Claire’s trust that he would respect her privacy, so he simply decided to change the topic.

“Maybe it’s a good thing she was suspended. She’s going to need some rest.”

“Well, sure, if she doesn’t want to go to school tomorrow, you should let her stay home,” Meg said. “But that was what I came here to tell you. I talked to Josie and she decided not to suspend her after all.”

Castiel’s eye widened. He had not expected Meg could hold that kind of sway and that she would use it to help Claire. Meg shrugged, but she was avoiding her glance, as if she didn’t want him to look at her and understand why she had done that.

“Like I told you, dear old Josie and I go way back,” she explained. “All the way back when she dated my brother, wore a leather jacket and called herself Abaddon. She had a bike and everything.”

“Really?” Castiel asked. He wasn’t surprise Meg had known a person like that, he was surprise that Principal Sands had been all of that. “How did she end up the school’s principal?”

“Well, she always had dictatorial aspirations and there were no small countries whose regimes she could overthrow, so… she had to put her iron fist to use somewhere.”

Castiel let out a little laugh, but Meg didn’t seem like she was joking. Not entirely, at least.

“That was… very kind of her.”

Meg scoffed. “She never does anything out of kindness. She’s too much of a sociopath for that.”

“Then why…?”

“The gym’s roof leaks and it’s getting renovated,” Meg explained. “Abaddon needs somewhere else to throw the Winter Formal dance and well, I have a pretty big house. Not exactly the giving back to the community you wanted me to do, but I still get points for it, right? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Castiel asked, but he knew exactly what she meant: he was beaming like a fool and he didn’t really think he would be able to stop himself any time soon. “It’s just… you’re full of surprises, Meg Masters.”

“Yeah, well… I wouldn’t say I’m the only one,” she said and dragged her chair a little closer. “I liked how you slammed that guy against the car.”

“Oh, that.” Castiel cringed. “That was extremely inappropriate.”

“Yeah? I thought it was kind of a turn-on,” Meg replied, smirking.

One of her hand was still on his forearm, but the other had fallen to hold his knee underneath the table. Castiel sucked in a breath and considered the risk of kissing her when Claire could come out of her room at any second. It wouldn’t be fair to drop this on her on top of the bad day she was already having. He didn’t know how she would react. If they were ever going to disclose their relationship to her (could it even be called a relationship?), it would have to be when she was in a better place, emotionally speaking.

Meg sensed his hesitation and took her hands off him.

“What are we going to do about next week, though?”

“Next week…? Oh, that’s right. The Remsen Stakes.” Castiel groaned and rubbed his eyes again. “I’m sorry. I can’t even think about that right now.”

“Okay.” Meg shrugged and stood up. “I’m going to go check on _Calypso_ and the filly. You take the day off and tomorrow we’ll see.”

She took one of the cupcakes from the platter and happily sank her teeth into it as she sauntered towards the door.

“Thank you,” Castiel managed to speak up right before she left. “For everything. Your help was invaluable today.”

Meg turned to look at him. She had her eyebrows raised as if she didn’t expect him to say anything at all about it. But after a moment she smiled radiantly at him again and shrugged with the same confidence as usual.

“Don’t even mention it.”

She popped the rest of the cupcake into her mouth as she walked away.

The following hours went by pretty calmly. Castiel made peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch and slid inside of Claire’s bedroom. She was still on the bed with _Bilbo_ curled up next to her, and while it didn’t seem like she had moved at all, he was glad to see that at least she had drunk the cocoa. He picked up the empty mug and put the plate with the sandwiches in its place.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her. Claire shrugged again and Castiel decided not to push it. “Andrea sent you cupcakes, if you want to have some later.”

“Okay,” Claire muttered in a monotonous voice.

“You sure you want to stay here? You could come into the living room and mindlessly browse through Netflix on the TV,” he suggested.

“Why are you being so nice?” Claire groaned.

The question confused him completely. He sat on the bed again and waited for her to elaborate. It took a while, but finally she sighed and continued:

“The only reason all of this happened was because I punched Henry in the face.”

“You punched Henry? When?” Castiel asked, so taken aback by that revelation that it took him a moment to realize that wasn’t really the most important aspect of that situation. “Well, even if you did. That doesn’t justify him gathering his friends and ganging up on you. What he did was terrible…”

“Yeah, but he didn’t know I’m so messed up in the head I would break down,” Claire groaned.

“I’m not sure I’m following your line of reasoning.” Castiel put a hand on her shoulder and delicately made her turn around so she looked at him. “Claire, you think you deserved this?”

“Well, don’t I?” Claire asked, and Castiel could physically feel his heart breaking at those words. “All I do is cause trouble for everybody. I cause trouble for you. I made you take me in, I made you move here. You had to leave your home, your girlfriend…”

“Stop. No.” Castiel shook his head and grabbed Claire’s hand, squeezing as tight as he could. “That is not true at all. I did all those things because I care for you, Claire. You’re my family. The only family I have left, in fact. And I would do anything to keep you safe, do you hear me?”

He stopped talking because the lump in his throat made it very difficult for him to keep speaking. Claire’s eyes were brimming with tears again. She sat up and hooked her arms around his neck and for the longest time, neither of them said a word. Castiel closed his eyes and silently did something he hadn’t done in a long time: he prayed he wasn’t going to mess it all up irreparably. Again.

 

* * *

 

Claire had a better aspect after she’d had a good cry. She moved with _Bilbo_ to the living room couch and ate the PB and J sandwiches while watching a colorful cartoon that apparently involved a lot of science jokes and swearing. Castiel tried to watch a couple of episodes with her, but he had the feeling the appeal of the show flew over his head.

“I don’t understand. If Rick is so annoyed by Morty’s optimism, why does he keep bringing him along in his adventures?”

“You probably need to watch it from the beginning to understand,” Claire said, with a scoff.

Castiel was about to ask her if she would like to put on the first episode for him again, but his phone rang at that precise moment. He took one look at the screen and stood up.

“Excuse me, I have to take this.”

He shouldn’t have bothered. Claire was sucking her finger for what was left of the peanut butter, both eyes glued to the screen without paying any attention to him. Castiel still walk away where she couldn’t hear it before he answered the call.

“Hello, Jody.”

“Hey, Cas. Hope I’m not bothering you. Listen, Alexis’ a bit worried because she heard there was some sort of incident earlier today at school and Claire didn’t go to classes. She’s not answering Alex’s calls, so she asked me to call you…”

“Yes, well.” Castiel looked over his shoulder, but Claire was still pointedly not paying attention to him. “Something did happen.”

He confided the details of the “incident” to Jody, and she swore out loud when he finished.

“Oh, that little dickhead,” she said, fury burning in her tone. “Should’ve known it had something to do with him. That boy is bad news for everyone. Why the hell wasn’t he and all his pieces of shit friends expelled?”

“Thank you, yes.” Castiel sighed, relieved that someone shared his exact same feelings. “Claire was a bit shaken up, so I brought her home.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that. Hey, is there anything we can do for you?”

Castiel opened her mouth to thank her and tell her that no, as kind as that was, he really didn’t think there was anything Jody could do for them, but then he looked up at the couch again, at Claire wrapped in her blanket mindlessly petting _Bilbo_ ’s head and realized that wasn’t entirely true.

“Well, there _is_ something…”

 

* * *

 

Friday started pretty well in Claire’s opinion. Castiel let her sleep until late and then she got to have breakfast with red velvet cupcakes. She spent the day lazing around in the couch with her dog and simply avoiding reality, but the truth was that as she dragged her eyes through the familiar phrases of _Two Towers,_ she was doing some soul-searching.

Castiel had guaranteed her that the previous day’s bullshit wasn’t her fault and while there was some truth to that, she couldn’t help to feel that wasn’t it. Henry had talked some shit, but she had thrown the first punch and then she had felt so proud when Alexis had been impressed for it. It had been incredibly stupid and reckless and now she had made an enemy because of it. And maybe she had been so fucked because there was some truth to Henry’s words.

She was trying to earn points with Alexis. Which was terrible and creepy on so many levels they were impossible to count. Alexis didn’t know Claire felt that way about her, for starters and Claire had absolutely no intention of letting her know, because one, Alexis was straight, and two, it was Claire’s burden to bear if she was stupid enough to get a crush on the first girl that had been nice to her upon arriving to Northeast Haven. So, wasn’t it completely unfair and stalkerish on her part to stay in Alexis’ house and sleep in her bed every time her uncle and Meg had a race? Granted, Ben was there too most of the time, but still, she was acting like a pervert and a terrible person.

That didn’t mean she was going to stop being friends with Alexis, of course. She was awesome and Claire was glad they had met. And it would hurt Alexis’ feelings if Claire decided to up and ghost her one day. But she was going to impose herself some boundaries. No more peeping when Alexis was changing (oh, God, why did she even do that? She should lock herself away in shame for it), no more trying to be all white knight around her (not any more than another friend like, Ben himself, would be) and no more staying at her house. She still didn’t know how she was going to work around that last part, but she would come up with something. She had the weekend to think about it, but by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, she should have come up with a plan to keep Alexis at arm’s length.

Which is why she felt so ambushed when Castiel returned from his job an hour after lunch and smiled at her as if he knew something she didn’t.

“What’s up with you?” Claire asked, a little taken aback by all that happiness.

“Nothing,” Castiel replied, but he took out at least four cans of soda from the fridge and placed them over the counter. That wasn’t normal.

“Are we expecting someone?”

“Well…” he started, but the rest of his words were drowned out by the roaring of a car coming down the path towards the cabin.

Claire felt cold sweat forming in her back. She knew that sound. It was the sound underneath their window that Ben made when he drove his stepdad’s car around the corner to sneak through the backyard. She put the book aside and ran to the window, her stomach twisting up in a knot.

“Oh, no,” she muttered and turned to her uncle and his face of pure satisfaction. “Tell me you did not!”

“I thought you would be happy to see them,” Castiel said.

Instead of answering, Claire fled into her room. Because alright, maybe she had made the decision not to let her actions be guided by her crush on Alexis not five minutes ago, but that didn’t mean she wanted her or Ben to see her in her pajama pants and hoodie that she’d had literally since she was twelve. It seemed like she was going to have to decide her behavior on a situation to situation basis.

“… Jody told me she couldn’t come, but I didn’t mind dropping the kids for their playdate,” Dean Winchester was saying when Claire opened the door.

“Dad, come on, it’s not a playdate,” Ben protested. “We’re just visiting Claire.”

“If I have to drop you off and stick around while you guys play or do whatever is it that you kids do these days, it’s a playdate and I will call it such.”

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Thank you, Mr. Novak. That’d be great.”

That was Alexis. Claire breathed in deeply, reminded herself she had absolutely no reason to feel weird that she was there because they were totally still friends and besides, Ben would balance things out, and moved to walk to the kitchen.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound completely casual about it.

Alexis immediately left her can of soda on the counter and walked up to Claire. She put her arms around her and pulled her in for a tight hug.

So that didn’t make things any less awkward.

“I’m so glad to see you,” Alexis muttered, still with an arm lassoed around Claire’s waist when they broke away.

“I’m… glad too,” Claire said, trying to sound as natural as she could. “Thank you for coming, guys.”

Behind her, Ben stretched his arms hesitantly, but put them down right away when Claire shook her head.

“Hey, Claire, why don’t you show your friends the newborn filly?” Castiel suggested.

That was a plan, she guessed. They strolled down the space open between the cabin, the main house and the stable, talking awkwardly about school and what Claire had missed and completely avoiding the elephant in the room. It felt like they didn’t know how to bring it up and Claire didn’t want to bring it up, but they knew they were going to have to talk about it at some point.

However, it could wait. Especially when they approached the stables and Claire pushed the doors open. Alexis face lit up right away.

“Oh, my God, look at her!”

 _Calypso_ and her filly were on the biggest cubicle of the stables, both of them with their legs tucked underneath their body. The filly was just as white as her mom and she was shy: she shot them a look of utter fear and tried to hide her face in her mother’s mane. _Calypso_ leaned over to groom her with her muzzle.

“That is so cute!” Alexis commented.

“She wasn’t this cute when she was being born,” Claire commented, but she was glad that Alexis was enjoying herself.

“Can we feed her or…?” Ben asked.

“She doesn’t have teeth yet,” Claire said. “But we can give some treats to _Leggers_.”

The chestnut horse had heard them come in and he was looking expectantly over his cubicle’s door with his ears up. Claire kept some carrots in a bucket just for him and always made sure to give him some whenever she visited or cleaned the stables. She didn’t know why, but he was her favorite. Maybe because she had seen him grown up from when he was a little horse with woobly legs and watched as her uncle tried to get him to get used to the reins and the chair.

“My uncle says he’ll be ready to ride in maybe a month,” she told her friends.

Alexis giggled when _Leggers_ leaned over to take the carrot from her hand and patted him in the muzzle. _Leggers_ seemed to approve of the attention he was receiving.

“Will you be riding him?” Ben asked.

“What? No,” Claire laughed, but a voice interrupted her from the door:

“That sounds like a great idea.”

The three went rigid almost immediately. Meg walked in pulling _Morningstar_ ’s reins right behind her and guided him to his own cubicle. The hell horse, as always, kept his head up an ignored everyone with the arrogance of a prince.

“Well, I don’t… I don’t think I’d really be that good at it,” Claire started mumbled while Meg calmly started taking off the reins from her horse and grabbed the brush to start grooming him. “I’m not that experienced…”

“Well, sometimes it’s not about experience. Sometimes it’s about how the horse and the rider get along,” Meg explained.

Claire felt hot air in the side of her face. _Leggers_ had stretched his muzzle over the cubicle’s fence and was grazing her shoulder, perhaps trying to determine if she had any more carrots for him. She automatically patted him in the muzzle without realizing she was illustrating Meg’s point.

“He does seem to like you, though,” Ben commented.

“Oh, you should try to ride him,” Alexis suggested. “I’m sure you’ll make a great team.”

Yeah, this whole “not-making-life-decisions-based-on-a-crush” was going to be harder than Claire realized.


	21. The Path Ahead

Andrea made a Thanksgiving turkey big enough to feed a dozen people, let alone five and especially three of them who needed to avoid an indigestion over the weekend due to travel reasons.

“You’re not going to lose the race because you put on a half a pound right before it!” she argued with Meg as she filled her plate with turkey and gravy.

“How do you know? Some jockeys could totally puke out half a pound right before the race!”

“Ugh, they do that?” Claire asked, wrinkling her nose.

“The cheaters do,” Meg replied.

“It’s considered bad form,” Castiel intervened. “That’s not to say some people don’t do it,” he added when Meg looked at him with a crooked eyebrow.

“But it’s not like we’re going to see them doing it all over the stables,” Meg added.

“Oh, that’s _such_ a relief,” Claire muttered.

The only who laughed at her sarcasm was Benny and that might have been because he had a few beers inside of him.

Castiel couldn’t complain though. It had been a very pleasant Thanksgiving dinner, full of joking and talking, but they cut it early because the next day they would be leaving for a weekend at Queens to ride on the Remsen Stakes.

And for the first time, Claire was coming with him and Meg.

“I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to stay with Alexis anymore,” she’d said, mumbling the way she did when she really wanted something but wasn’t sure if Castiel was going to say yes. “I just… you know, with everything that happened, I want to spend more time with you.”

That was very nice and Castiel certainly appreciated her saying so, but she didn’t fool him for a second.

“That’s a really great idea, Claire. And since we’ll be in Queens, you can see some of your old friends from school,” he’d pointed out. Claire had bitten the inside of her cheek, as if she was hoping Castiel wouldn’t notice that. “Including that girl… what was her name? Magda?”

“Yeah,” Claire had said cringing. “Umh… so, it’s okay if I come?”

“Absolutely,” he’d agreed. “I’ll tell Meg to add a room to our reservations.”

Meg had not been happy about it.

“And at what point do you propose we have sex if Claire is there with us?” she’d asked.

They were in the stables, grooming the foal after a long day of training (they still refused to call him _Leggers_ , even though Benny had taken to do it because he noticed how they cringed when he did). Castiel had stopped on his tracks with the brush in his hand, only for the foal to shake his mane with an annoyed huff.

“That’s not… you realize we don’t always have to…” he’d tried muttering, but Meg kept looking at him with an eyebrow raised and well, he had to admit she had a point.

They still made out when they had the chance, but the entire basis of their relationship were those physical encounters they had when they were away from home, where no one could see them and “decide to stick their ugly noses on our business”, as Meg put it. So maybe she had a point about that.

“Hey, it’s fine, if you don’t want to do it this time,” she’d said, shrugging. “I get it if the novelty has worn away.”

“That is not… Meg, come on.”

“Just give me a little warning next time,” she’d continued saying as if Castiel hadn’t said a word. “And here I was planning something special…”

She’d turned around as if she was going to walk back to the house without waiting for him and Castiel had decided he wasn’t having any of that. He’d dropped the brush to the ground, ran after Meg and grabbed her by the waist. Before she could protest or ask what he was doing, he’d showed her exactly how much he still wanted her: he’d shoved her against the wall and kissed her, open-mouthed and desperate. Meg had practically climbed on him, wrapping a leg around his waist and rubbing against him in an almost indecent manner.

There were so many reason they shouldn’t have been doing that there, but it took them a few minutes for their brains to catch up to them. Meg had gently grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him away.

“We’re not having a literal roll in the hay right here like a couple of teenagers while all the horses watch,” she’d told him.

“You’re right. Last time you couldn’t go through with it and it was only one dog staring.”

Meg had laughed and her bad mood had dissipated as fast as it had come.

“We’re going to have to make a decision about this some time, you know.”

“I’m sorry, weren’t you the one who didn’t want anybody to know about it in the first place?”

“True. But, uh… I’m starting to think I don’t really care that much anymore,” Meg had admitted with a little shrug and a friendly pat on his cheek. “So it’s just up to you when and how you wanna bring it up to Claire.”

That had given him a lot food for thought. Why didn’t she care about people finding out? Did that mean she wanted their relationship to be more on the serious side? When had that happened? What had he done right to deserve that and more, importantly, how could he keep doing it? Because he was still completely mesmerized by her and he wanted with all his might to make things work.

But of course, she had a point. He needed to think about Claire and how she might take it.

She had been okay for the last couple of days. A little quieter when she was reading or making her homework in the kitchen’s table and a little snappier when Castiel asked her to do the dishes or clean up after her dog, but no more so than usual. And even though the request to come along to the race had been unexpected, he figured it was just a matter of her really wanting to get away for a while. Unwind. He couldn’t really blame her for it.

And even though Meg and Claire had very similar temperaments and they had proven they could at least co-exist pacifically within the boundaries of each other, that didn’t mean that they could get along in another completely different scenario. So maybe sticking them together for a couple of hours in a car and driving them to a busy New York race track would give him a more clear view of how they would get along in case he decided to tell her.

Which also begged the question… if he decided not to tell her, would Meg understand? Would her interest in him only be fleeting? Would he totally miss his chance if he decided it was best not to rock the boat too much at that point?

There were too many questions boggling his mind. But with any luck, maybe he would get some answers over the weekend.

Friday morning was grey and rainy when they left the ranch, so the road trip was slower and more silent than Castiel would have liked. But still, nothing that would be too terrible, all things considered. Claire slumped in the back seat with her green earphones on and Castiel slumbered in the passenger seat while Meg drove. After a bathroom break and some coffee for everybody in a gas station, Castiel offered to trade places with Meg.

“Can I drive?” Claire asked.

“No.”

“I can drive!” Claire protested.

“I’m not letting you drive in the highway while it’s raining…”

“Maybe she could drive for a while on the way back,” Meg suggested. “It’s always quieter on Sundays. And she needs to get some hands on experience anyway.”

“At driving on the highway?” Castiel asked. Meg shrugged and Claire beamed at him, as if the fact she had another adult on her side completely overrode whatever point Castiel was trying to make.

And that was about the time Castiel started regretting his decision of putting the two of them together. It turned out, Meg was a proponent of “letting kids be kids” or as she called it, to Claire’s amusement, “natural selection”.

“Think about it, though,” she insisted, as Claire chuckled in the backseat. “If you keep helicoptering all over those children, they’re going to know absolutely nothing about life by the time they turn eighteen. They’re just going to be this little spineless idiots who think everything will be served to them in a platter…”

“What, like it happened to you?” Castiel asked, unable not to feel annoyed at that assertion when he knew Meg had grown with lots of money and going to private school.

“Yes! And I will be the first to admit I am a pretty messed-up person.”

“Well, can’t really argue with you there,” Castiel said.

“Woah, dude,” Claire commented. “How is that whole brutal honesty working for your romantic life?”

“I’m fine, thank you very much,” Castiel said and instead of taking the opening, he decided to change the topic. “How about you? Are you going to meet up with Magda while we’re at Queens?”

Claire’s smile suddenly vanished and she turned her gaze to the window.

“No, I’m not going to see Magda.”

“Why not? You two used to be thick as thieves…”

“Because the last time I talked to her, she told me her mom was going to send her to a pray the gay away camp if she kept seeing me.”

Castiel really wished he would have bitten his tongue about that. He cleared his throat just to break the thick silence that fell that declaration.

“You… you didn’t tell me about that,” he muttered.

“I didn’t feel like talking about it,” Claire groaned, turning her face to the window.

“They have camps for it now?” Meg asked. “In my times, the nuns just made us kneel on frozen beans and pray the Holy Spirit would cleanse us of our lustful thoughts.”

Castiel had to fight the urge to stare at her. He sneaked a glance before turning his eyes back on the road, but Meg seemed to be entirely too serious.

“Really?” Claire asked.

“All-girls Catholic boarding school,” Meg explained, with a little shrug. “None of us came out of there straight, despite Mother Mary Angels’ best efforts.”

Claire snickered, and when Castiel looked at her on the rearview mirror, he noticed she was smiling wide, as if Meg’s tale was just what she needed to hear to cheer up after he had brought up the touchy subject.

“So did you have like, a girlfriend?”

“Claire…” Castiel started, but Meg interrupted him before he could tell his niece it was rude to ask such personal questions:

“Charlie Bradbury. She was this tiny nerd. And a redhead,” Meg said, with a laugh. “I lost my virginity to her. I actually didn’t try anything with a guy until I was in college.”

“Yuck.”

“Don’t knock it ‘till you try it. I was surprised too.”

“Well, I don’t want to try it. At all,” Claire replied shaking her head.

“Hey, your body, your rules, kid.” Meg shrugged.

It was really hard not to swerve off the highway hearing that, but somehow he managed to keep both his hands on the wheel and not move a muscle. He obviously had nothing to share in those aspects and it was pretty clear that conversation wasn’t for him anyway. But on the other hand… despite how understanding he had tried to be, despite how accepting he had assured her he was, he knew Claire didn’t want to discuss that aspect of her identity with him. Perhaps having an adult that had more hands on experience, someone she could identify with, would help her open up. And Meg could give her tips on how to stay safe. This could only be a good thing.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Miss Masters?” Claire asked, laughing.

“Call me Meg,” she offered. “Miss Masters is what people in town who are scared of me call me.”

Claire let out another snicker and suddenly the day looked a lot brighter outside.

 

* * *

 

Of course, as usual, the first thing they did upon arrival was go check out on _Morningstar_. The horse seemed happy enough in his stable, with enough food and water. Meg insisted on grooming him and Claire said she’d rather stay than go to the hotel, so Castiel went to check them and promised to pick them up later. He didn’t feel bad about leaving Meg and Claire alone. Now that Claire had discovered that Meg was bisexual, she seemed a lot more enthusiastic about talking to her and that, he figured, might as well be the beginning of the friendship they needed to have in order for his and Meg’s relationship to become official.

At the very least, he couldn’t help but to notice she had rented a room for the two of them that was joint by a door. So she was giving him time to find a way to bring it up.

“… how many horses have won that thing anyway?” Claire was asking when he returned. She had sat on a stool in front of Morningstar’s cubicle, eating a caramel apple that God only knew where she had got.

“Like, a dozen,” Meg answered. “It’s rare, but not entirely impossible. We don’t need to win the Triple Crown, though. We give a good enough performance during the season, and people will pay to have their mares served by this champ.” She patted _Morningstar_ in the muzzle and he shook his mane, as if to indicate that he was fully aware of what a great specimen he was.

Claire hummed pensively as she took another bite of her apple.

“So you’re basically aspiring to pimp out your horse.”

“No!” Meg said, slightly offended. “I mean, it’s not like… you’re such a little shit, you know that?”

Claire laughed happily and Castiel shook his head as he approached them.

“Well, it’s all settled,” he said, as he gave Meg her magnetic card. “Do you guys want to take around the town, maybe go for dinner?” He extended his hand at Claire, but frowned when she didn’t reach out to grab the card.

“You really want me to keep that?”

“This one’s for your room,” he explained. “Unless you want me to keep it for you…”

But Claire had already snatched the card out of his hand with glimmering eyes.

“I get my own room? Really? Dude, why didn’t you say so? Can I order pay-per-view and pizza?”

“Claire, you’re a minor, for the love of God,” Castiel said, exasperated. Meg giggled besides him.

“Pizza does sound great, though,” she commented. “Maybe we can have some?”

“Weren’t you the one who wouldn’t eat an extra slice of turkey two days before the race?” Castiel teased her.

Meg gently punched him in the bicep.

“Indulge me.”

She put away the grooming instruments and they were still laughing and joking when they piled up in the car and Castiel drove them to his favorite pizza restaurant. This was one thing that Northeast Haven didn’t have. Not to disparage Ellen’s cheeseburgers and Andrea homemade meals, and as much as Claire joked about how he had become better at microwaved ramen, sometimes he couldn’t help but to crave he greasy, terrible New York food that had been his daily sustenance for many years.

And this pizza felt particularly good. Not only because he got to share them with Claire and Meg (though he noticed she limited herself to two slices), but because Claire actually engaged in conversation with them instead of putting on her headphones and ignoring them.

“But what about those people dressed with the jackets and the boots and the top hats?”

“That’s dressage,” Meg explained. “It’s ten times harder than horseracing.”

“A thousand times harder,” Castiel intervened. “For horseracing, you have a year, maybe two, to teach the horse to just run in a straight line as fast as they’re able to and then they retire soon after. For dressage, you have to teach them to move in a certain way, to follow a certain rhythm, hold themselves a certain way…”

“They have to be super elegant and poised and the rider has to be very concentrated as to not screw up the routine,” Meg added. “It’s like having to dance with a partner who doesn’t understand you when you try to explain the steps to them. It can take years. And there’s people crazy enough that they not only teach them that, but they also teach them jumping and how to run so they can go to these eventings…”

“It would be like a triathlon for a human athlete,” Castiel explained. “If one of the legs of the competition was performing a dance routine to perfection.”

“Woah,” Claire said, but she had a pensive look in her eyes. “Could _Leggers_ learn to do all that?”

“Okay, first of all, if you really want that horse to compete anywhere, you need to choose a more dignified name for him,” Meg pointed immediately. Claire smiled with completely feigned guilt. “And second, he’s a thoroughbred. He was born to run.”

“Maybe I can call him _Bruce Springsteen_ then,” Claire said. “You know, because dancing. The Boss could definitely move his legs.”

“That… no, that’s still terrible,” Meg said, shaking her head. Castiel burst into laughter.

 

* * *

 

They returned to the hotel rather early. Meg wanted to be well rested for the race the following day and despite allowing Claire to miss class that day, Castiel didn’t want her to go to bed too late.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” Meg said, as they all stood awkwardly in the hallway, fumbling with their magnetic cards.

“Yes. Of course. Good night.” Castiel waited until she was inside of her room to turn his attention back to Claire. “Don’t sleep too late. Meg likes to be at the track early.”

“Okay,” Claire said. She didn’t turn around, just kept looking at Castiel pensively. He was about to ask her if there was something else she needed when she bluntly asked: “Are you and Meg sleeping together?”

If she had slapped him the face, Castiel couldn’t have reacted any worse.

“What? No! How do you even…? Where did you get that ridiculous idea?” he asked, stepping backwards as if that would prevent Clare for learning the truth.

“I don’t know. You just seemed oddly in sync today. Like when you were talking about the dressage and all that shit.”

“Language,” Castiel scolded her, shaking his head. “No. It’s not like that at all. Claire, come on. That’ not even…”

“Okay.” Claire raised her hands in the air as if she was asking for mercy. “I was just asking, dude. No need to get all defensive.”

“I’m not defensive, I’m just…” Castiel said, before the reality of his defensiveness hit him in full force and he couldn’t do much but grit his teeth. “She’s my boss. It would be extremely inappropriate that you suggest something like that where she can hear you.”

“Right. Because I’m not smart enough to know better,” Claire said, rolling her eyes and turning her back on him. “See you.”

He could have handled that a lot better. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that. Yet, not even fifteen seconds after he’d closed his own door and leaned against it, the door that led to Meg’s bedroom open she walked in with a mocking grin in her face.

“What the hell was that?” she asked him. It sounded like she had to fight back a chuckle.

“Oh, you heard?” He cringed.

“It was… it was pretty bad, Cas.”

“I… I panicked,” Castiel admitted, lowering his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” she said, as she flailed on his bed, still smiling with amusement. “But that was a perfect opening for you to come clean to her.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” he repeated. He managed to scrap enough dignity to walk up to the bed and sit by her side. “I know you wanted me to disclose our relationship to Claire and I agree things would be easier if she knew. But perhaps it is too soon for something of the sorts…”

“Wait, why would it be too soon?” Meg frowned.

“We’re still getting to know each other and… I don’t think we’ve even been to a proper date. Unless you count Louisville, but we weren’t really…”

“Cas, what are you on about?” Meg asked. “Why would we even go on a date?”

Castiel blinked at her, looking for signs of more mockery or an indication that she was jesting again. But he couldn’t find any. He didn’t think it would be possible for him to feel even more awkward and embarrassed that night but as always, Meg could surprise him in the most unexpected ways.

“You don’t want us to…? I mean… I thought…” Castiel stuttered. Meg kept staring at him, waiting for him to finish his phrase and he started wishing the earth would swallow him up already. “You don’t want us to… date?”

“God, no,” Meg said, leaning away from him as if he had just suggested that did something outlandish and dangerous. “I just wanted to stop sneaking around all the time.”

“Oh.” Castiel stared down at his shoes. He didn’t know if he was mad at her for being so blunt or at himself for assuming that was what she’d meant. On the other hand, he had no right to be angry with her, as she very well reminded him:

“I never intended this to be a serious thing. I told you that from the beginning.”

“Yes, you did,” he admitted. “I just thought that perhaps your feelings had changed.”

“Okay, you need to tell me what I did to make you think that,” she said. “So I will stop and never do it again.”

“You wanted us to tell Claire,” Castiel pointed out. “That’s… maybe that’s not serious for you, but it is for me. Extremely. She’s my family. Before I share something like this with her, something that could potentially change both our lives, I need to be sure.”

“Well, there’s no problem, then. Because you obviously weren’t sure. So why are you brooding?”

“I… I don’t know,” Castiel sighed and straightened his shoulders. “I guess… I don’t know.”

But he did know. As it had happened so many times with so many girlfriends before, he had jumped the gun. He had assumed that Meg was on the same page as he was when that wasn’t the case at all and he had made the situation awkward for the both of them. And she was right, he couldn’t blame her. She had never indicated that she wanted a change of the status quo; he had just heard what he wanted to hear.

Meg’s hand came to rest on his knee. He stared at her a little surprise to see her mischievous smirk back in her face.

“Claire is a pretty smart girl,” she commented, her fingers creeping up his arm before she placed her other hand on his neck. “She would understand it if you explained it to her.”

“I’m sure she would.”

“But?”

But Claire had started really liking Meg now that they had found common ground. He didn’t want Claire to get happy about him being with Meg and then getting disappointed upon realizing it wasn’t meant to be a serious thing. Or getting upset if they broke up (Could it be called a break-up if they weren’t really dating?). So it was best, for the time being, to keep this from her.

He didn’t say anything, but Meg must have read it on his face, because she nodded.

“Well, okay. Your kid, your rules,” she accepted. She inched closer to him. “But we’re good, right? We’re staying the way we are right now?”

“Yes,” Castiel said. Because having even a little bit of Meg was better than not having her at all.

“Good.” She tilted her head. “And now I really want us to change the topic.”

Castiel agreed. He kissed her and dragged her down to the bed with him.

 

* * *

 

“So when does this thing start?” Claire asked. She was snacking on a hot dog covered with so much ketchup her fingers were red (“Because ketchup is too a vegetable, Cas”) even though they’d had an abundant breakfast before they left the hotel (well, abundant for the two of them; Meg had barely downed a piece of toast and some tea).

“First the horses go to the gate,” Castiel explained.

The horses were already lining up and as usual, _Morningstar_ was visible among them. His black coat almost shone despite the very weak sun in the sky thanks to Meg’s grooming. He kicked the door impatiently, for what Castiel could deduce from the cloud of smoke rising beneath him. That could potentially be a bad thing, but Castiel trusted Meg would be able to control it.

“And they’re off!” the announcer said. “ _Morningstar The Third_ quickly takes the lead over his competitors…”

“Watch him go!” Claire exclaimed, but Castiel felt a shiver going down his spine. Meg never let _Morningstar_ take the lead this early in the race. She preferred to reserve his energy for the final stretch and it was a strategy that had worked for them so far. Why was she now…?

“… _Lady Rowena_ comes in fourth, she passes _Lincoln’s Top Hat_ …”

He looked around among the cloud of trainers and owners and he spotted Rub’s black hair almost right away. Meg must have known she would be there. She wanted to make sure she won this, but he wasn’t sure that move had been the smartest one…

Bu he couldn’t do anything but wait to see the results. For now, they were still in the lead, so if Meg managed…

“Come on!” Claire said, standing up and letting her hot dog drip some ketchup on her shoe. “You can do it, come on!”

“ _Lady Rowena_ is quickly shortening the distance with _Morningstar_ and these two are leaving their competition behind. They’re moving in for the final stretch… it’s going to be _Lady Rowena_ or _Morningstar_ , they’re almost there… and _Lady Rowena_ wins by a head!”

Castiel cursed out loud.

“Castiel!” Claire exclaimed, looked at him half-scandalized and half-amused. “Language!”

“Come on!” he said, grabbing her by the hand.

“Wait, hold up,” Claire protested, but Castiel dragged her by the arm and started guiding her down the bleachers. Through the corner of his eye, he saw Ruby doing the same thing. They met at the base of them (Claire still clutching her hot dog) and Ruby grinned at him as if she was very satisfied.

“Well, that was exciting, huh?” she commented.

“Yes,” Castiel said, forcing out a smile. “Congratulations to you.”

“I’m sure he did,” Castiel said.

Ruby rolled her shoulders and walked away to where the judges where already walking towards _Rowena_ and her jockey to proclaim them winners.

“Who was that bitch?” Claire asked.

Castiel was so nervous that he forgot to scold her for her language. He could only think about how this would affect Meg. It was actually the first time they lost with _Morningstar_ , even if it had been a very close call.

However, she didn’t seem all that affected when they approached her. She smiled as if she didn’t have a care in the world and shook the other jockey’s hand, congratulating him on a race well run. Castiel also shook his hand quickly before he approached Ruby and Meg. The two old friends seemed to be talking quite amicably, if their tone was anything to go by.

“Well, of course, I didn’t expect anything but a great fight from you,” Meg was telling.

“Stop. We’ve always known _Morningstar_ was a champ. Guess just not as fast my champ, huh?”

Ruby laughed and Meg joined her with a half-hearted chuckle.

“Who’s her owner?” she asked, point blank. “I thought they’d want to be here to celebrate _Rowena_ ’s victory.”

“Well, my new boss is usually very busy,” Ruby said, shrugging. Castiel had the impression she was all too eager to walk away from that conversation, because next she said: “Hey, sorry, I have to go pose for the picture. You know.”

“Go. Congratulations again,” Meg replied.

Her smile faltered the second there was no one looking at them anymore.

“Well, let’s see the positive of it,” she said when they were back in the cubicles. _Morningstar_ had finished an entire bucket of water and Claire had gone to get him some more. In the meantime, Meg was grooming him again, obsessively. Castiel was pretty sure she was just doing it to keep her hands occupied. “We’re still in the money. And we still have some left from the Breeder’s Cup.”

“Right,” Castiel said. He was only half paying attention to Meg’s freaking out and he knew that was a terrible thing in his part, but he was busy looking up the results of the Kentucky Jockey Club rce and writing down the names and how much points the winner had earned.

“Of course, one second place in the prep season might end not meaning a damn thing in the long run. Hey, what are you even doing?” Her shadow fell on the page and Castiel looked up, trying not to smile at her.

“I think we might already be eligible.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Meg said, rolling her eyes and huffing, a little bit like _Morningstar_ when he didn’t want to run. But slowly, the weight of what Castiel had told her started dawning on her. “Wait… really?”

“We have forty four points. In the overall ranking we are among the top ten. Of course, this is all before the championship season and it could change, but if we keep it up we might not even need to run some of those races. Unless you want to, of course.”

Meg frowned at him, as if she thought he was pulling her leg.

“What do you mean we have forty four points? _How_ do we have forty four points? We’ve run four races, came in first in three…”

“The Breeder’s Cup is worth twenty points.”

“Right.” Meg snapped her fingers as if only now she remembered that. Then her mouth opened in a perfect ‘O’ for five seconds before she found her words again: “Holy shit, we might be eligible!”

“We might be…” Castiel said, but then Meg jumped at him laughing, slamming into him so hard he almost dropped to the floor. He managed to put his arms around her waist and spin her around, the both of them laughing like maniacs.

“Woah, what’s going on here?” Claire asked, appearing around the corner with the bucket. “What are we celebrating?”

“Kiddo, if we enter the Kentucky Derby, we’re taking you,” Meg promised, right then and there. She passed an arm around Claire’s shoulder and pulled her closer. “School be damned. You’re going to see history get made.”


	22. Blackmail

“Are you sure I’m the right person to be doing this? Maybe Meg should try it. I mean, she’s the one who runs these at extreme velocity for kicks.”

Castiel also thought perhaps they should have started with a more experience rider for the chestnut’s first ride, but Meg had been very adamant that Claire should try her hand with it. He didn’t know why, something about her having a better connection with him, ridiculous naming notwithstanding. But the horse could sense when you were nervous around them and _Leggers_ (the chestnut, he corrected himself in his mind almost immediately) definitely was sensing Claire was only half-heartedly trying to get on his back.

“Well, we can tell her we tried,” Castiel said, with shrug. “I’m sure that will be enough for her.”

Claire bit her lip and observed the horse again. Just when Castiel thought she was going to tell him to forget it, she shook her head and pulled her hair underneath her cap.

“No. I’m going to try.”

“Okay. But if he gets too agitated or if you see he puts his ears back, you come down right away,” he instructed her.

“Gotcha.”

She put her foot in the stirrup and lifted herself up. The chestnut shook his head a little and tried to take a step backwards. Castiel held his breath and waited, but after a second, the horse stilled itself. Claire let out a deep sigh, as if she too had been expecting the worse.

“There we go,” she muttered, leaning over to pat the chestnut in the neck. “This isn’t so bad now, is it, _Leggers_? I actually feel taller up here.”

Castiel had to bite back a smile. “Let’s give him a minute so he gets used to the weight. Keep doing what you’re doing: talk to him and pat him. Hold the reins a little higher,” he instructed when Leggers started moving his head from one side to the other. “That’s good.”

“How’s that going?” Meg asked from right beside the paddock. She was wearing a very thick violet jacket to fend off the early December cold and as usual, she was mounting _Zeus_.

“Pretty well… woah,” Claire said, because _Leggers_ had just given another step. “Is he supposed to do that?”

“Yes,” Castiel assured her. “Don’t worry. I’m standing right here. Let him settle into it.”

He kept observing the horse carefully, but the chestnut seemed to be pretty relaxed, if a bit vexed by what was going on, same as he had the first time Castiel had saddled him up. He chewed on the reins pensively and tried to look over his shoulder to see what Claire was doing, while she kept patting him and assuring him it was alright. He didn’t start bucking or tried to get Claire off of his back. Unlike what had happened the first time Meg tried to ride _Morningstar_ , according to her.

“Now this little guy is a lot gentler,” she commented. “Seems he might even have a career in dressage and all.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Castiel warned her and Meg laughed. “Okay, now, get down.”

“What? Really? I’m not even going to walk him or anything?”

“Baby steps. He needs to get used to having someone on his back first,” Castiel said. “So we’re going to keep doing this: you get on, you stay there for a little while, then you get off. And then we do it again.”

“Sounds mind-bogglingly boring,” Claire said.

“Why do you think I asked you to do it?” Meg laughed.

Claire stuck her tongue out at her and then dismounted a little clumsily. It was a cold Saturday morning and the clouds indicated it might start raining or snowing soon, so they only had a few hours (or maybe minutes, it really was impossible to tell) to practice in the open air. Castiel was going to suggest they took an early lunch break if it got too cold, but the roaring of a motor drowned out his words. The chestnut neighed and shook his mane, obviously disturbed by the sound and even _Zeus_ , who was usually very calm, stepped backwards without Meg ordering him to.

The car came honking down the path stopped right before the main house’s porch. Castiel didn’t know much of cars, but he could tell it was red, expensive and looked brand new. In a town where most people drove second-hands from Bobby’s junkyard, it must have stuck out like a sore thumb. It was hard to know who would even dare to drive it all the way there without getting shot by Benny for bursting into private property, but there it was.

And Meg seemed to know exactly who it belonged to.

“Oh, fuck,” she muttered. She dismounted and handed Zeus’ reins to Castiel without even looking at him. “Get him back to the stables, will you? I gotta take this.”

Usually Meg would let them run around free around the field, but as the day had got colder, she insisted on “tucking them in early”. That wasn’t strange. But there was a tension in the edge of her lips and the way she avoided Castiel’s gaze that were definitely not normal.

“Who is it?” Castiel asked.

Instead of answering, Meg strode away directly towards the car. Its door opened and a brunette man in a brown jacket emerged from the inside. Castiel couldn’t see much of him, because Meg stood in front of him while they exchanged a few words. They were brief and apparently cold, because Meg’s back was very rigid and her movements automatic when he pointed towards the house. She and the man climbed the porch’s steps and disappeared inside.

“Who do you think that is?” Claire asked, echoing Castiel’s thoughts exactly.

“I don’t know.” He stepped over the fence and patted _Zeus_ on the muzzle. He knew he should be doing what Meg told him, but he found himself rooted to his spot and staring at the house and the red convertible car.

“Maybe he is like a mysterious ex-boyfriend who showed up to save the ranch?” Claire suggested.

“Have you been reading erotic novels again?”

“God, no, I’m over that,” Claire said, shaking her head with a grimace. “I was just trying to do what straight girls are supposed to do, you know?”

“Well, I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to be yourself now.”

“Don’t change the topic, Dr. Phil.” Claire rolled her eyes at him. “Who is the mysterious, dark, tall stranger?”

“None of our business, that’s who he is,” Castiel said. “Do you think you can stay here with the foal while I take _Zeus_ back inside?”

“Why do you keep calling him that? He has a name.”

Castiel decided not to start the debate again about what a ridiculous and undignified name it was. Also, _Leggers_ was turning a year in a few more weeks, so he supposed he should start calling him “the colt”. Meg hadn’t said a word about selling him and he really hoped she wouldn’t, since Claire was so clearly attached to him.

Then again, Meg didn’t tell him everything. Like if there would be ex-boyfriends dropping by the ranch.

Not that it mattered. Why would it mattered? Meg was with him now… although that might be too strong an asseveration. They slept together every couple of weeks when they had a race and they wouldn’t go to any that month, so perhaps Meg had called someone else to take off her edge. It wasn’t like they were exclusive. It might have even been implied in the whole “casual” thing that they could see other people. Would she tell him if he asked? He supposed she would, in the interest of fairness, but…

He was clearly letting his imagination run wild. He hung the reins to their nail in the wall and gave _Zeus_ a treat before checking on _Calypso_. Her filly stood on shaking legs that looked extremely fragile and thin. She was completely white except for one black sock in her front right leg. He was rather fond of that single imperfection. It made her look distinguished, in his opinion. He let her smell his hand before giving her and her mom a single pat.

He thought he was calmer when he came out of the stable, but his eyes were immediately drawn to the convertible car again. It was so big and pretentious, what kind of man drove something like that anyway? It was like he was trying to be as ostentatious and annoying as it was humanly possible. Or overcompensating. He shook his head and pushed him out of his mind immediately.

Claire was pulling from _Leggers_ ’ reins and making him walk around the paddock, clicking her tongue and pretending to have a treat whenever the horse hesitated. Castiel stopped for a second to look at that. It was amazing to think this was the same girl who wouldn’t even come near the horses just six months before. Maybe Meg was right and there was a connection between his niece and this one particular horse.

“Hey,” Claire called out when she saw him and approached the fence pulling _Leggers_ behind her. “Meg and the guy are still in the living room. I saw them through the window. So you wanna do the whole mount-dismount thing again or do you want grab a bite in the kitchen?”

“It’s a little bit early,” Castiel pointed out. “Besides I wouldn’t want to… I’m sure Andrea has some sandwiches and juice we can sneak out. I don’t want to… barge into anything.”

“If we go through the back door, Meg and the mysterious stranger won’t see us,” Claire said, rising an eyebrow. “And we can listen to what they’re saying from the kitchen.”

Castiel rubbed the back of his neck.

“Eavesdropping is bad, Claire.”

“Sure,” Claire agreed. “But aren’t you just dying to know?”

Castiel was pretty sure this alone would be enough evidence if someone were to try and take Claire’s custody from him. Then again, he didn’t know who would try and do that when the two other people they worked and lived with were doing the exact same thing he’d just said they shouldn’t be doing.

Benny was leaning against the counter sipping from a can of soda, while Andrea stood on the doorway, strategically positioned so she wouldn’t be seen from the living room but she could still get maximum auditory capacity. All Castiel could hear though were indistinct voices coming from the living room. They sounded rushed and a little angry, but they hadn’t reached full on screaming match levels yet.

“Hey,” Claire said and casually sat down in front of the sandwiches’ platter as if they had not gone there to do the exact same thing Andrea was doing. “How’s that going?”

“Not very well,” Andrea informed them.

“Come back here before they see you,” Benny told his wife with a sigh, as if that happened all time.

“What is he even doing here?” Andrea muttered, apparently very annoyed by this entire situation. “Why did no one tell us he was coming?”

“So… you know this… person?” Castiel dared to ask.

“Know him!” Benny snorted. “We work for him. And so do you, chief. He’s Tom Masters.”

Meg’s brother. Claire seemed a little disappointed that the truth was far simpler than whatever novel she was writing in her head, but Castiel sighed and leaned back on the chair. It wasn’t a boyfriend or a friend with benefits. Just her brother.

Her brother, who also owned the ranch and the horses, but hadn’t even bothered to drop by once in six months.

“Wait, why is he here now?”

“Exactly!” Andrea said, but immediately shushed them as if she wasn’t the last one to speak and cracked the door open just a little further.

Meg’s voice came floating at them from the living room:

“… what are you talking about? Tom, we’re having the best prep season we’ve had in years!”

“She sounds mad,” Claire commented.

“Okay, yeah, sure,” Tom replied. His voice sounded as deep and tired as Meg’s did. “But many things can happen between now and the Derby and you know it better than anyone. Last time you lost…”

“By a head!” Meg reminded him. “And one loss doesn’t mean we’re going to throw all the work we’ve been doing with _Morningstar_. He’s a champion and I’m going to take him there.”

“Look, sis, I know you’re still mad at me,” Tom replied. “But this offer is more than we would make even if you won every single race between here and June. You need to at least consider it…”

“I’m not going to consider shit. And neither are you. You know why? Because without my signature, you can’t sell a single blade of grass of this place.”

“That’s right. Because we both own it. And that means half of all the money you’ve been making is mine,” Tom reminded her. His voice sounded angry and vicious. “So I really hope you didn’t spend it all, Meg.”

Castiel didn’t even realize he had stood up and clenched his fists until Benny put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Castiel took a deep breath and forced himself to sit back down.

Meg snickered a little too loud for it to be real.

“That’s what this is all about? Fine. I’ll pay you back. I just need some time. Happy, now?”

“No, I’m not happy,” Tom snapped. “Why do you even keep holding on to this place, Meg? What’s in here for you?”

Meg didn’t answer for what seemed like the longest time. Andrea tilted her head to try to see what was going on at the living room, Claire stretched her neck to take a peek and Benny put his beer down and looked towards the door, as if he was curious about the answer.

“Get out.” Meg’s voice came angry and low. It wasn’t hard to imagine she was containing herself not to scream.

“You can’t keep this up forever, Meg. You need to accept that the ranch’s been going under for a while and you can’t save it.”

“I said, get out!” Meg repeated, louder this time.

“Fine!” Tom snapped back. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Another moment of silence followed. Claire stood up and ran towards the window.

“He’s leaving,” she announced.

A few seconds later, they heard the motor of the convertible roar down the path that led to the gate.

“Oh, dear,” Andrea muttered under her breath and immediately opened the cabinet doors to start pulling out pans and pots. “I better get a head start with dinner.”

“Chérie, I don’t think you can fix this with food,” Benny commented.

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

Castiel didn’t have a better one, but he stood up and left the kitchen anyway.

He didn’t know what he was expecting to find when he entered the living room. Meg would be upset, he was certain of it, but he didn’t know if she would be crying or if she would be breaking things in rage. Instead, she stood in front of the window, watching attentively as if she wanted to make sure her brother had gone away for real.

“Meg?” he called out, uncertain.

She turned towards him. Her face was strangely serene, expressionless, even, but when she spoke, he could sense the tension in her voice:

“Shouldn’t you be working?”

“It’s… my lunch break,” Castiel replied. He took a step towards her. “Meg, I…”

“Well, finish with that and get back to it,” she said, in a tone he hadn’t heard her use since he was just starting at the summer. “Slow and steady doesn’t win the horse race.”

She didn’t exactly storm out of the house afterwards. She just strode towards the door and left it open in her wake, as if she couldn’t even be bothered with banging it close.

“That bad, huh?” Benny said.

Castiel wasn’t even sure what to say to that.

 

* * *

 

“So do you think she’s going to take it?”

The question took him slightly by surprise. They were again on the field, with Claire climbing up and down Leggers’ back. They had talked about little else except to comment on how the horse was taking it and how she should pat him to keep him calm. But of course none of them was thinking about that.

And Castiel was too dejected to pretend he didn’t know what Claire was talking about.

“I don’t know,” he answered sincerely. “I don’t think so. This place means more to her than anything else. She told me.”

“But what if her brother does something?” Claire insisted. “To like, screw her up. What if he betrays her? What if he tries to do something to the horses?”

“So we’ve gone from erotic novel to conspiracy theories?” Castiel said, shaking his head. “People don’t do that in real life, Claire. Yes, there’s manipulative people and cheaters, but they don’t go around sabotaging each other. Get down now, please.”

Claire dismounted with a lot more grace and confidence when she wasn’t really thinking about it. That was to say, when she had her mind busy with all sort of other crazy ideas about what the future entailed.

“But he could try something. And what happens if Meg has to sell after all?”

Castiel didn’t want to believe in that possibility. But now that he thought about it, it was pretty obvious that was how Meg had got in the desperate situation she was in. If she and Tom had both signed the mortgage, and now Tom wasn’t willing to give up his part of the earnings, that meant Meg had to cover double the costs with half the budget. And she couldn’t buy Tom’s part of the ranch because he clearly had another interested buyer (Castiel wanted to believe it wasn’t Crowley, because that sounded too much like Claire’s conspiracy theory) and she couldn’t compete with the price they had offered.

So Meg was carrying the weight of the entire ranch by herself. And with that in mind, he couldn’t deny there was a distinctive possibility that even if they won every single race, even if _Morningstar_ sired several other horses, Meg wouldn’t be able to cover the costs.

“I don’t know,” Castiel admitted, with a frustrated sigh.

“Will we have to move away?”

“Maybe. I don’t… perhaps if she sells it, another person interested in horseracing will come to live here,” Castiel said. “And I can work for them and I won’t have to move you in the middle of your senior year.”

Claire arched an eyebrow and Castiel had to admit that it sounded like a lot of bullshit now it was out there.

“Can you like, get your old job back?”

“I don’t think we should worry about that right now,” he said and then corrected himself: “You shouldn’t worry about it. It’s my job to take care of you and not vice versa.”

“Yeah, but only until I go to college. And that’s less than a year away,” she pointed out.

Castiel had to bite the inside of his cheeks to keep himself from smiling. It was the first time in several months that he heard the word “college” come out of her mouth. It almost sounded like she was planning for a future she’d almost give up on again.

“It’s not only until you go to college,” he clarified. “I’ll always be here to help you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, let’s not get too sentimental here,” Claire said, snorting. But when she climbed back atop of the chestnut, she was smiling. “I mean, if you have to take care of me after high school it means that you failed to make an independent adult out of me.”

Castiel laughed and handed her the reins of _Leggers_. It had been a long afternoon and he didn’t think they would lose anything for trying.

“Try tapping in him in the sides gently with your heels,” he instructed her.

He didn’t expect the horse to get the instructions right away, but as soon as Claire did, he took a few hesitant steps forwards. Claire tapped him again and this time, _Leggers_ started walking with much more confidence following the line of the paddock.

“Wow, okay, boy, easy,” Claire muttered, obviously surprised at how fast the horse had got the gist of it. “Hey, how do I stop him? Cas!”

“Let him walk a little longer,” Castiel, trying not to laugh. “It’s okay. He’s getting used to it.”

“Well, would you look at that,” Benny commented from beyond the face. “They’re like two peas in a pod, huh?”

“Meg has good instinct for this sort of thing,” Castiel admitted, turning to him.

Benny had a thick jacket and a scarf in his hand. He didn’t have to tell Castiel who they belonged to. He gave them to him without saying a word.

“She’s probably down by the creek, brooding on a rock or something,” he said. “Go bring her home.”

“Why do you think she’ll come just because I ask her to?”

“Meg listens to you, brotha’,” Benny said, shrugging. “I mean, I’ve known her for years, and how many of my suggestions do you think she’s taken?”

Castiel reflected upon that. It wasn’t always easy to convince Meg to try something different, but it was true. The two had come to an understanding that they needed to work together in and out of the racetrack. And perhaps Meg needed the reminder that there was someone in her corner, especially now.

“Cas!”

 _Leggers_ had started a hastened trotting that was definitely not part of the plan and Claire was freaking out slightly. Castiel walked up to him and grabbed him by the reins, clicking his tongue and patting him until the horse halted and Claire could dismount.

“There we go. Easy, boy,” Castiel said, patting him in the muzzle. “You have to learn to walk before you can run, little guy.”

“Yeah,” Claire muttered. “And you better not run with me up there again, you hear me?”

 _Leggers_ snorted and shook his mane. Perhaps he was taking on some of _Morningstar_ ’s bad habits after all.

 

* * *

 

Meg was by the creek, just as Benny had predicted. She was leaning on a tree and watching the water run while _Zeus_ calmly grazed the few patches of grass that hadn’t frozen yet a few steps behind her. Castiel dismounted _Persephone_ and approached her silently to throw the jacket over her shoulders. Meg didn’t even raise her head to look at him, not even when he walked around and leaned against the tree opposite to her. He cleared his throat.

“Hello.”

“Really?” she asked, finally raising her head at him. “Hello?”

“That is still the word, right?”

She didn’t laugh, but the edges of her mouth quivered as if she was trying to hold back a smile. He counted that as a win.

“Why are you here?”

“Well, it’s getting dark and cold,” he pointed out. “Benny and Andrea were worried.”

“Oh, yay, I can look forwards to comfort food I probably won’t even finish eating anyway.” Meg rolled her eyes. “That’s a plus.”

“What makes you think there’ll be comfort food?”

“Please. Like y’all weren’t eavesdropping.”

Castiel didn’t attempt to deny the obvious.

“Your brother seems a little… angry.”

“He’s got such a chip on his shoulder,” Meg replied, groaning. “‘ _Oh, you always had it easy, you were daddy’s little girl and grandpa’s star jockey._ ’ I trained hard to be good enough for them! There were weeks I would subsist on grapefruit and green tea because I wasn’t light enough to go on the horse according to them and Tom knows that. He knows all that went on in this place and he still comes to me playing the victim?” Meg scoffed. “Not my fault he made a few awful choices and jumped ship the minute he started to suffer some consequences. If he really needs the money, why the hell doesn’t he sell that horrible car of his?”

Castiel nodded in silence, not sure what he could answer to all of that. He was in absolute agreement that Tom’s car was obnoxious, but he really couldn’t say anything about the rest. Even people who lived in the same house often had different accounts of what they’d lived. For everything he heard about Tom, it was clear the man was not without his faults, and yet…

“You worked together for a long time, before… all of what happened,” he pointed out. “What changed?”

Meg sighed and hit her head against the tree’s trunk.

“I don’t know. I was the one who wanted to come back after our old man kicked the bucket,” she replied. “I convinced him to come with me, because who else was I going to work with? You know, he’s my family. That’s supposed to be the one thing you can trust. Guess not so much, huh?” She shook her head. “Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps I’m holding on to this place for nothing.”

Castiel took a step forwards and grabbed her hand. Meg looked up at him, her mouth twisted in anger and her big brown eyes filled with disconcert. But she didn’t move away.

“Family is very important. But sometimes the people we call family can hurt us the most,” he said. “And sometimes complete strangers can end up becoming your family. It’s… all a matter of perspective, really.”

“I’m not entirely sure what truth you’re trying to lay on me, Yoda.”

“I’m saying you don’t have to feel obliged to your family if that makes you unhappy,” Castiel explained. “You told me once you ran this place to spite your grandfather’s legacy. But you also love these horses and you love what you do. So maybe that’s what’s in here for you. Not just spite and bad memories, but also all the dedication and passion you put in it. To reclaim it. To make it your own.”

Meg tilted her head at him. Slowly, but surely, a smirk appeared on her lips and in a moment, it had grown into a full blown grin.

“Damn,” she muttered, finally taking a step towards him. “How is that you always say the right thing?”

“Well, I am extremely charming and wise,” Castiel joked.

“So you’re more Obi-Wan than Yoda, is what you’re saying?”

“I’m not entirely sure of the difference between those two,” Castiel said. “We Novaks are more fantasy than science fiction people.”

Meg put her hands on his cheeks to pull him down. They kissed standing very close to each other and burying their hands under each other’s jackets to keep them warm. When they opened their eyes again, the last light of the afternoon had disappeared.

“Come on, now,” Castiel said, pulling from her hand. “We wouldn’t want Andrea to have made all that comfort food for nothing.”

“Oh, God forbids it,” Meg laughed. “Just thinking about grapefruit and green tea made me hungry.”


	23. Truce

There were some disadvantages to hosting a ball for a bunch of teenagers. The first one, Castiel discovered, was that the rest of the parents of said teenagers were openly hostile to Meg. They all glared at her the second she and Castiel walked into the classroom where the meeting about the event was taking place. Even Jody, who had apparently made peace with the fact that she was indirectly connected to Meg through her daughter’s friendship with Claire seemed at the very least incredibly surprised.

Dean had his hand half-raised, as if he’d been about to signal him, but now he was slowly putting it down. The brunette woman sitting next to him elbowed him and pointed at the two seats by their side.

“Hello, I don’t think we’ve met,” she said with a wide smile, offering her hand to Castiel. “I’m Lisa, Ben’s mom. You must be Cas.”

“Yes, hello. Nice to meet you,” Castiel said, hurriedly. He was always a mess when he met new people, and of course, a PTA meeting wasn’t going to change anything about it. “Dean’s told me lots about you.”

Lisa nodded cordially and then looked over his shoulder. Meg had taken a seat behind Castiel and it took her a few seconds to realize the awkward silence that followed pertain her.

“Hi,” she said, curtly. She didn’t introduce herself or tried to shake Lisa’s hand. Castiel wondered if he should elbowed her like Lisa had done to Dean, but before he could, Principal Sands opened the door and walked in.

“Goodnight, everybody, glad to see you all made it,” she said, with the confidence of a veteran teacher that had seen plenty of unruly classrooms. “Please, take a seat. We all know why we’re here: to discuss the details of the Winter Formal. First thing on the list, we’re going to need volunteers to chaperone… yes, Mr. Chambers?”

“Yeah, I just got a simple question.” Mr. Chambers, a man with a brown wind breaker, lowered his hand and turned around on his seat to stare daggers into Meg. “Why is she here? She has no kids.”

“Oh, come on, Lee. You’re not still mad about that one incident with the pool, are you?” Meg asked, smiling cheekily at him.

“Miss Masters has been kind enough to offer her home, the Morningstar ranch, to host the dance,” Principal Sands said. There was a bit more to it, but Castiel figured she didn’t want everyone to know about the details of the negotiation that had taken place. After all, she could definitely be accused of nepotism if she did. “So, the chaperones’ job…”

“Why?” Lee Chambers insisted. A rumor of agreement around the classroom echoed his feelings.

“Can’t I just do something nice for the community?”

“I mean, you _can_ ,” Jody said. “It just would be the first time ever.”

Meg stared at her and Castiel feared for a moment that she was going to answer something sarcastic or harmful. But in the end, she only smirked again.

“My grandfather used to have New Year’s Balls every year,” she replied. “It was a way of networking with other horse owners around the county, that’s true. But also, it was a big event for Northeast Haven as a whole. I thought perhaps it was time I brought that tradition back.”

She was lying through her teeth and everybody in the room could tell. But luckily for Meg, they were too polite to call her on it.

“And beside, my house is bigger than the gym and the roof doesn’t leak,” she pointed out.

There was another collective rumor, this time of reluctant agreement. It seemed the leaking problem had caught everyone off guard and no one had a better suggestion on where to host the Winter Formal.

“Good. So now that’s settled and we can get back to the chaperones,” Principal Sands said, throwing everyone a serious stare, as if to indicate that no more interruptions would be tolerated.

Jody, Dean and Lisa volunteered, perhaps because they knew that if they didn’t, they would be ambushed.

“Are you sure you can’t help at all, Mr. Pike?” Principal Sands asked, giving him a look of disappointment and tapping her desk with her pen.

“Well… I mean, I guess I could go… a couple of hours?” Mr. Pike said, crunching on his seat as if he wanted the earth to open up and swallow him.

“Excellent!” Principal Sands exclaimed, grinning. “Anyone else?”

“I could do it,” Castiel said, shyly raising his hand. “I mean, I already live there, so I wouldn’t have to… drive or anything.”

“Yes, transportation is another issue I think we should discuss,” Lisa said. “How are the kids going to be coming back and forwards from the dance? Some of them could carpool with the chaperones or with other kids, but they might find themselves in trouble when they have to come back.”

“It’s true. Some kids may leave early without their friends to… you know, have some time alone by the cliffs,” Dean said.

The other parents gasped in horror and everybody started talking at the same time at a much louder volume than Castiel expected, screaming things like: “My daughter would never!” and “What are you trying to insinuate?” all while Dean raised his hands to show innocence and said things along the lines of: “I’m just saying, we’ve all been young…”

Castiel turned to Meg who, if anything, seemed a little amused by the entire ordeal.

“It’s the local lover’s lane,” she explained, simply. “Kids go to make out and do mischiefs over there.”

“Oh,” Castiel said. And then again when he came to full realization of what she was saying: “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah, well, better there than at my property,” Meg huffed. She chose the worst possible time to do it, too, because suddenly all the room went quiet and everybody heard exactly that. So everyone was staring at her once more. She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders a little bit. “I… I don’t know. You could put them in a bus.”

“That’s… actually a great idea,” Jody said. “That way kids who have no one to bring them back can have the school bus leave them at their home, safely, and it would greatly reduce the traffic on the road between the ranch and the town.”

“I will make the proper arrangements,” Principal Sands said, nodding and writing something down on her notes. “So now let’s talk about food.”

The meeting went well over two hours while they discussed that. Some parents wanted to save costs, but some others were of the opinion that the kids “deserved” something good, so they argued over food, entertainment, possible problems of what would happen if they left the house and got lost in the big space that was Meg’s ranch.

“Oh, just let them freeze their asses off and see how they come running back inside,” Meg groaned, while she rubbed her temples. She clearly wasn’t enjoying the discussion of those trivial details at all and Castiel almost felt sorry for convincing her she should absolutely go. Lisa, on her part, bit back a smile at that comment before raising her hand to make another suggestion.

By the end of it, it had been decided that they would have tent with heating outside so there would be more space for eating and dancing, that the students’ dance committee (of which Alexis was a member) would go a few hours earlier to set everything up and that absolutely, under no circumstances, were the children allow to go anywhere near the stables. Or the pool. Meg stopped short of saying that they would be shot or attacked by dogs if they even dared to, but it was sort of implied.

At the end of the meeting, she looked like she regretted every single decision she had taken to lead to that moment in her life.

“Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate what you did for Claire?” Castiel said, trying to mitigate the horror she was clearly feeling when they left the classroom.

“Yes, you did,” Meg groaned. “Not entirely sure your gratitude is enough after this.”

Castiel was going to ask (half-playfully, half-serious) what else he could do to compensate her, but someone called his name. When he turned around, he saw Lisa practically dragging Dean behind her as they hastily approached them.

“Hey, Cas. I was wondering if you’d like to come have a drink with us at Ellen’s Roadhouse. Jody’s coming too,” she added.

Jody, who was walking towards them, froze on her spot and stared them as if she was asking where exactly she was supposed to be going.

“Uh…”

“We haven’t had time together in a really long time,” Lisa said, stretching her hand to touch Jody’s shoulder. “Why don’t you come?”

“Well…” Jody checked her cellphone really quick and smiled a little forcefully. “I guess I could go for a beer. Alex’s at her babysitting gig tonight.”

“Great. Cas?”

Castiel knew he had exactly five seconds to come up with an excuse that didn’t sound like he was lying.

“I-I mean, I’d love to,” he stammered. “But it’s a long drive back to the ranch and we only came in one car…”

“Meg can come too,” Lisa added, immediately turning her unrelentingly charm and cordiality towards Meg. “I mean, if you want to.”

“Oh,” Meg said, obviously as taken by surprise as Castiel had been. “Well, that’s very thoughtful of you, but we really should…”

“Come on,” Lisa pleaded. “If I’m being honest with you, I was really looking forwards to meeting you. I’ve lived in this town for years and I don’t think we’ve ever talked.”

“I don’t go out a lot,” Meg said. Lisa ignored that gross understatement and continued insisting:

“I understand. You must be so busy all the time, but you’re like a minor celebrity around here. And what you’re doing for the kids is so generous, the least we can do is buy you a drink.”

Meg opened her mouth and closed it again. It was as if she had just gone completely speechless at Lisa’s kindness. Castiel looked at Dean, as if his friend could give them an out, but Dean simply shrugged.

“She’s a hard woman to say no to.”

That much was obvious. Five minutes later, Castiel and Meg were sitting on the car having accepted the offer to go for drinks, completely unsure of how and when that had happened.

“She’s the wife of one of the few friends I have here, what’s your excuse?”

“I’m susceptible to praise,” Meg admitted. “Do you think we can turn around when they aren’t looking and make a break for it?”

“They’ll notice when we don’t show up at the Roadhouse,” Castiel pointed out. He started the car in resignation and left the parking lot behind Jody’s car.

“This is a nightmare,” Meg complained.

“Socializing is a nightmare?”

“Yes! I don’t have anything in common with these people. What the hell am I supposed to talk about?”

“I don’t think anyone expects you to talk about anything. They invited me because we’re all parents and they want to talk about the kids,” Castiel replied, bluntly. “Lisa just invited you because it would have been rude not to.”

“So that’s like a thing you do after PTA meetings?” Meg asked, frowning. “You just go for drinks and talk about your kids?”

“Pretty much. I was baffled the first couple of times, too, but you get used to it.”

They had to take a turn around the block to find a parking spot. The Roadhouse was busy for a Thursday night and Castiel wondered if he could text Dean, tell them they had to go back to the ranch for an emergency and get out of this situation neither of them wanted. But before he could put that plan into motion, Jody spotted them across the street and waved at them. So there was no escaping now.

Several heads turned around when they entered and Castiel knew right away they were all staring at Meg. To make things worse, Dean and Lisa had found a table on the other end of the Roadhouse, so they had to make their way around the tables delivering a lot of “Excuse me” and “Pardon”. And that only guaranteed more people noticed Meg was there and more of them stared at her in their wake. When they finally reached the table, Meg took the chair with her back turned to all other patrons and Castiel couldn’t blame her for it.

“I hope you don’t mind, we ordered beers for everybody,” Lisa said, still so kind that Castiel imagined people around her felt so awkward they had to match her in manners. It was made even more obvious when she turned towards Meg and asked: “I know jockeys are supposed to have very strict diets, so if you don’t want to have a beer, that’s absolutely fine. We’ll tell Jo to bring you something else.”

If anything, at least it was very funny to see how many times Lisa could catch Meg by surprise.

“No, beer’s fine,” she said. “I can have a beer now and then.”

“Great!”

There was a bit of an awkward silence while Jo came to serve them the drinks and the little bowls of peanuts. They all took a swig as if that would make them loosen up somehow.

“So, Cas,” Jody started. “Alex and Claire had really become thick as thieves.”

Castiel tried not to think about how that was the exact same thing he had said about Claire’s ex-girlfriend (Were they girlfriends? Claire had never confirmed it) and all the time they spent “at the cliffs”.

“Yes, Alexis really has made her feel welcome here,” Castiel said. “Ben, as well. He’s a very good boy.”

“Glad you think so. I think he might’ve a little bit of a crush on Claire,” Dean said, laughing.

“Oh, yes, he talks about her all the time,” Lisa added. “Claire this, Claire that…”

“How unfortunate for him,” Meg muttered.

Castiel had to resist the urge to kick her under the table and instead went for a head shake that he hoped was subtle. It wasn’t that he had any doubt in his mind that Dean, Lisa and Jody were very good people. But even the best of people had prejudices they couldn’t help and after the Henry incident, well… he wanted Claire to be as safe as possible.

Which was going to be a little complicated, because Lisa asked:

“How so?”

“Well… you know… she doesn’t really care for boys,” Meg started, and glanced at Castiel for help. She cleared her throat and said quickly: “Because… she’s very dedicated to her studies.”

“Yes, she wants to focus on her career once she finishes school,” Castiel said.

“What’s she going to study?” Dean asked.

“English,” Castiel answered, saying the last thing he and Claire had discussed when she still talked about going to college. “She likes to read a lot.”

“That’s so nice,” Lisa said, nodding approvingly. “You’ve done such a good job for her.”

Castiel smiled, accepted the praise he always received for taking care of Claire (as if there was anything else he could have done upon Jimmy’s death) and kept drinking his beer while they luckily changed the topic. Well, not really.

“So, the Winter Formal,” Lisa said, finally arriving to the topic she had probably wanted to hit from the beginning. “Ben needs a new tuxedo and we were thinking about taking him to New Haven to get one. We were wondering if you’d like to come along, because the girls are going to need dresses as well.”

“That’s such a great idea!” Jody exclaimed. “We can make it an excursion.”

Castiel also thought it was a good idea, but he told them he’d have to get back to them. Last time he had involved Claire in plans without her consent, it hadn’t been pretty. He also felt a little bad that she wasn’t going to be able to avoid the Winter Formal at all, what, with it taking place just meters away from their cabin.

Which reminded him, they needed to add the cabin to the places the kids were absolutely not allowed to go to.

They still started talking about possible places to get the dresses and how much money they were going to need for them and Lisa made sure to get down everyone’s phone number so they could make a group chat about it. It was decided that the following Saturday would be the perfect day for the excursion, unless it started snowing, which Dean doubted.

“The heavy snow usually starts after New Year, so we shouldn’t really worry about it. Saturday’s okay for you, isn’t it, Cas?”

“Well, uh… I would have to ask my boss. She’s kind of a hardass.”

“Yes, what a heartless woman to make you work on a Saturday,” Meg said. “But maybe there’s some way you can convince her.”

Castiel had to make a double-take. Had she just… flirted with him? In front of all these people? And had no one else but him noticed? Because they were all laughing at his confusion, even Meg.

“You know, you’re not what they say about you in town,” Lisa told Meg, after the chuckles died over.

“Well, what can I tell you?” Meg shrugged. “People say lots of things.”

They finished their beers soon after, said their goodbyes in the Roadhouse door and everyone went for their own cars after Jody made a joke about lightweights and driving under the influence. Castiel was still too shocked by Meg’s interaction to actually do any more than force out a half-hearted laugh.

“I guess that wasn’t so bad,” Meg commented, as she put on the seat belt.

They made it out of the town in a heavy silence.

“That was… I mean, you were pretty friendly,” he commented, even though that wasn’t the word he had in mind at all.

“I can be friendly if I want to,” Meg said.

“You were pretty friendly with _me_ ,” Castiel clarified.

“Oh come, like half of the town wasn’t already speculating about us before they saw us together in public,” Meg snorted. “And now the other half is going to hear about it. If it circles back to Claire, you can just tell her it’s nothing but small town gossip. People don’t have many sources of entertainment. Pretty strange, given we live in a time when Netflix exist.”

Castiel let her ramble for a while and let her reasons calmed his agitated mind. She was right, of course. Nobody could prove anything and denying it outright would only make them look more suspicious. Confirming it outright may not have been a good idea either, because Meg was still a bit of a pariah around those parts, which could make him and Claire a pariah by association.

It was strange how easy it was to get back into the small town people mentally even after so many years living in the city. There, if he had a falling out with a partner or a friend, he could count on seeing them rarely, maybe never again at all. But in a town like Northeast Haven, they had to be cordial and made small talk with everyone and spontaneously take people out for beers.

And that really was where Meg’s beef with the townspeople stemmed from. They saw Crowley often enough to know what to expect of him. Meg just stayed at home and won her races and minded her own businesses. She was both mysterious and scary for it, and the fact she was probably richer than all of them (the fact her ranch was struggling financially meant nothing to people who were used to thinking about the Masters at rich) only drove the wedge between them further.

So she needed to get closer to everybody. That night, getting seen at the Roadhouse, probably made the evening eventful for the patrons there. And the Winter Formal was of course a way for people to see she could do things for the town. But it wasn’t enough.

“What are you plotting in that crazy head of yours, Cas?” she asked, bringing him back to the present.

Castiel turned off the engine and looked at the house for a moment.

“Where are they even going to put the tent?” he wondered.

“God only knows,” Meg said, shaking her head with pure horror. “I’ll honestly just be really happy when all of this is over.”

“I can imagine.”

They looked at each other and smiled. Castiel leaned over to kiss her, pretty aware they were a lot of potential witnesses if Andrea happened to be snooping out of the window or if Benny had to go out to get the dogs. But he really couldn’t bring himself to care and neither did she.

“Hey, you wanna go to the cliffs and make out in the backseat?” she suggested, crooking an eyebrow.

“Tempting, but perhaps some other time. I don’t want to leave Claire alone for so long.”

“Gotcha.”

Meg reached for the door’s handle.

“Do you want to come?”

She stopped and turned to him, confused. “To the cliffs? Really?”

“No, I meant to the… dress buying excursion,” Castiel explained. And yes, maybe saying that right after one of Meg’s come-on may lead to some confusion. “I’m sure Claire will appreciate your fashion tips.”

“Well, Jody and Lisa must have some fashion tips as well,” Meg pointed out.

And that was a negative. Castiel tried not to look too disappointed. He must have failed, because Meg felt compelled to ask:

“Why do you want me there for, anyway? That’s like… a family thing. Today we can dismiss because I was at the PTA, but if I go to that…”

“No, you’re absolutely right,” Castiel agreed. “It was a dumb idea. Forget I asked.”

Meg opened her mouth, as if she was going to say something else. But at the last second, she shook her head and opened the door.

“Goodnight, Cas.”

Castiel mumbled a goodnight and stepped out of the car. He stayed there despite the cold until she got in. Only then he moved back into the cabin.

Claire was stretched on the couch, holding a thick book with a dragon on the cover and her headphones on so loud Castiel could hear the rumor of the music coming from it. He pulled them off her head.

“You’re going to go deaf,” he warned her.

“Well, better for me. That way I can’t hear the haters,” Claire replied.

That was clearly a joke Castiel wasn’t meant to get, so he didn’t even attempt to. He went to the kitchen and discovered that of course Claire hadn’t washed the pot and the dishes after making mac and cheese. At the very least she had left a plate for him. He pushed it into the microwave and punched the numbers absentmindedly.

“You’re not going to ask how’d the meeting go?”

“Why, did something cool happen?” Claire asked, distractedly turning the pages of her book. “And by cool I mean a debate of pirate versus ninjas erupted or something like that.”

“No, no debates,” Castiel said, though he couldn’t help the smile. “But we did go for some beers afterwards…”

Claire lowered her book and stared at him with growing horror as he explained to her everything they had discussed with Jody and Ben’s parents. Even before she opened her mouth, Castiel already knew what was going to be her answer:

“Do I have to go?”

“I thought it would be fun for you,” Castiel sighed. “But if you don’t want to go, that’s okay.”

He dug into his mac and cheese and started chewing. It took him an entire minute to notice that Claire had put down her book and was looking at him pensively.

“Is there a problem?”

He expected her to deny there was any at all, but Claire surprised him. She set the book aside and stood up to sit down at the table next to him. She intertwined her fingers, opened her mouth and then closed it again, almost as if she was looking for words to explain to Castiel just what was bothering her.

“I… well, I don’t think I should be going.”

“Why not?” Castiel frowned. It was one thing if she didn’t want to go due to her extreme introvert tendencies, but she was coming at it in a completely different way.

“Well, you know,” Claire continued, avoiding his gaze. She was blushing and stuttering: “I don’t want to… I could… it could be uncomfortable.”

“Why?” Castiel asked again, at the risk of bringing Claire’s ire because he was being too slow at picking up the hints she was throwing.

Claire indeed scoffed, at the edge of losing her patience, but instead of throwing her hands in the air and tell him to forget it, as she was wont to do, she took a deep breath and looked up at him:

“Because I don’t want to make Alexis uncomfortable.”

“Why would you do that?” Castiel asked, tilting his head. “Has she said anything to you? Did you fight?”

“No,” Claire admitted. She tapped her fingers on the table, still not quite looking at him. “But what if she finds out?”

She didn’t have to clarify if she meant about Claire’s sexuality or about her having a crush on Alexis. Castiel supposed either would be embarrassing for Claire, especially if she wasn’t ready to come out to her friends just yet.

“Does she have any reason to think you… like her? Like-like her? Have a crush on her? What do kids even call it these days?” he added, frustrated as Claire grimaced.

“It’s not that easy!” she huffed.

“I suppose it’s not,” Castiel admitted.

He remembered how painfully awkward it was to have a crush on someone at seventeen when even the mildest of social blunders felt like death or at the very least, social death. Claire had the added pressure of having to deal with small-minded and potentially aggressive people who thought ill of her for her identity. The community of Northeast Haven had thus far been very kind to them (except for Henry Weiler and his father), but he didn’t know how they would react upon finding out about Claire.

However, they both knew all too well that bigger communities not always meant more open-minded people.

He leaned over and placed a hand on her forearm. Claire looked at him expectantly, but Castiel really had no great life-changing advice to give to her. Just some quiet support and reassurance.

“If you’re unsure of what her reaction will be, you don’t have to tell her,” Castiel said. “However if you do decide to tell her how you feel and she rejects you, that will be hard, but it won’t be the end of the world. You will have other chances, you will meet other girls. And if she can’t accept you as her friend for what you are, then she wasn’t even worth it to begin with.”

Claire shifted in her seat, but when she looked up, she was almost smiling.

“And what if she likes me back, huh?” she asked. “What are the chances?”

“Well, at least I know she won’t be impregnating you,” Castiel sighed.

Claire let out an offended gasp and punched him on the arm.

“You do know there’s an entire species of lesbian lizards that reproduce through parthenogenesis, right?”

“You’re not a lizard.”

“How cool would it be if I was, though? I wouldn’t have to go to lame dances and wear stupid dresses.”

And the moment she started insulting school dances, Castiel knew she was feeling a lot better.

 

* * *

 

The trip to New Haven was actually quite fun after all. Ben tried out different tuxedos and dropped stupid James Bond references all throughout. Claire actually managed to find a dress her size, blue and knee-length, but the best part had to be by far the fact that it had pockets hidden between the skirt’s folds. Alexis was so jealous she immediately tried to get one similar, but the model didn’t quite fit her, so ended up going for a strapless pink one that looked adorable on her.

“I don’t know,” she said, spinning around so the dress would twirl between her legs.

“I like it,” Jody said.

“Yes, you look so cute in it!” Mrs. Braeden added.

Alexis twisted her mouth unsure and turned to look at Ben and Claire, who were both sitting outside the changing booths. The stupidly gay part of Claire’s brain was acting in full force that day, because it took several seconds for her words to reach her mouth.

“Yeah, it’s very pretty…”

“You look… wow,” Ben said at the same time and showed two thumbs up. “Really good.”

That was apparently all the encouragement Alex needed, because she smiled at herself in the mirror.

“Well okay. I guess I’ll take it.”

Afterwards, the adults set them loose in the mall, which was great, because Claire needed new books. And Castiel had given her the credit card, so she wasn’t about to waste the chance.

“When are you even going to read all of this?” Alexis said, as Claire piled book after book of high fantasy on the side.

“Yeah, isn’t it easier to just binge-watch the TV series?”

“Do not get me started on the character assassination that was that thing!” Claire replied with a groan. “Those guys have no sense of nuance or pacing…”

She ranted for ten minutes about the TV series and why the books were infinitely superior, but on her defense, Ben and Alexis didn’t interrupt her. In fact, they seemed amused that she was so annoyed at it.

“… and besides, I need something to keep myself entertained during the winter break,” she concluded as she swiped the credit card to pay for her loot. She felt not an ounce of guilt for it.

“Well, you’re not going to be reading through all of it,” Ben commented. “I mean, we’re going to be hanging a lot, right?”

“Right,” Alexis said. “If we even get to make you come out of your cave.”

She brushed her shoulder against Claire’s amicably, but of course the stupidly gay part of her brain took that as a sign that she should blush and start stuttering like an idiot.

“I mean, yeah, you totally… if you have hot chocolate, I could consider it.”

They both laughed and called her a hobbit, which Claire was fine with. They took selfies in front of the mall’s fountain and met up with the adults for lunch before driving back to the town.

“Did you have fun?” Castiel asked.

“Yeah,” Claire said, with an aloof shrug. “It was okay.”

She didn’t want to admit that it had been as close as a perfect day as she could have wished for.


	24. Heartbreak

The day of the Winter Formal, Meg seemed at the edge of a nervous breakdown. She wasn’t used to having all those peoples in her home and in her opinion, the snowflakes decoration and the disco ball Dean was installing in the living room were a little overboard.

“Remind me again why I agreed to this?” she told Castiel, as she watched with a cringe the party tent being set up in her garden.

“I’m not entirely sure myself,” Castiel admitted. “But I appreciate it greatly.”

Meg turned to look at him with a strange expression in her eyes, almost as if she wanted to say something snarky or sarcastic but couldn’t find it in herself. It would be the first time ever he saw her go speechless.

“I should move some things out of the way,” she decided, changing the topic abruptly. “I’m going to take them upstairs.”

“Let me help you.”

They borrowed a box from Claire and her friends (they all seemed incredibly happy to be helping, joking around and talking loudly about how much fun they were going to have that night) and put away Meg’s pictures and other decorations around the room. This time when they went up, Meg walked past the bathroom’s door without a second look and headed straight towards the end of the hallway.

Castiel swallowed loudly, not sure whether to keep going. It was strange: for as long as they had been there, he hadn’t been upstairs more than once, but he already knew that the door Meg was going to open would be on the left side. Because that was the room that he could see through his window.

Her room.

She opened it and looked at him over her shoulder.

“You coming or what?” she snapped at him.

“Yes, of course,” he said, hurrying up to follow her. “Sorry.”

It still felt like he was trespassing something sacred as he followed her inside. He didn’t mean to stare, he really didn’t, but as it happened, his hopeless romanticism made him take a very good look around, to take in as much of her as he could.

The room was pretty spacious and decorated mostly in violet, with a half open bathroom door, the carpet, the curtains and the walls all sporting softer shades of that color. There was a vanity cabinet in dim lavender to the side that had a mess of make-up and cream bottles to the side and a static bike where Castiel deduced Meg spent some minutes every morning to maintain her weight. There was also the full body mirror he knew so well because he could see it through his own window, and the walk-in closet where Meg was putting the boxes. She stepped back to look at him.

“What?” she asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“You, uh… you have a very peculiar bed,” he commented, blushing because he knew how Meg was going to take that comment, even though it was entirely true: most of the bedroom was taking up by a four-poster with also violet curtains that seemed right out of a period drama.

Meg eyed as if only then she noticed it, but then she smiled.

“Oh, yeah,” she commented, walking closer to Castiel. “It’s also very damn comfortable.”

Castiel closed his eyes, pretty certain she was going to kiss him. Instead, she only took the box from his hand and moved back into the closet to put it away with the other. Castiel sighed and thought he needed to take his mind out of the gutter. However, when Meg came back out, he couldn’t help to notice she had unbuttoned her blouse a little bit. Or perhaps she already had it like that, but he was only noticing now because as usual, it was very easy to get enthralled by her when they were alone.

“So,” she said. She stepped even closer and put her arms around his neck.

Castiel swallowed loudly. “So…?”

“I was thinking that you and Claire don’t have to go back to the cabin after the party is over,” she said, standing so close now the points of their shoes were grazing. “You could stay here.”

“Here?” Castiel asked. It was very hard to connect his thoughts when she was looking at him with those eyes and that smirk.

“There’s a guest room across the hall,” Meg explained. “Claire could sleep there.”

“Okay,” Castiel muttered.

“And… you could sleep here,” she added, almost standing on her toes. Her breath grazed his face and Castiel immediately put his hands on her waist. It was so easy, almost too easy, to be drawn to her. “We can tell her you’re staying in the main room. No one’s slept there since Tom and Ruby both moved out.”

“Weren’t you the one who was concerned about us… doing this here?” he asked, smiling at her.

“We can be very, very careful,” Meg guaranteed. “No one has to know.”

One day, Castiel would find the strength or the reason within himself to refuse Meg. That was not that day.

“That… sounds like a plan,” he said. “We can definitely do that.”

Meg smile was radiant. Castiel leaned down to give her a kiss…

There was a knock on the door and the both of them just jumped backwards and straightened their clothes. They hadn’t even started making out, it was just a reflex.

“Come in,” Meg said, stepping away from Castiel. He still was pretty certain they looked awkward in the eyes of Benny. If he noticed anything out of the ordinary about the both of them just standing there, he didn’t say it.

“Hey, the food is here,” he told them. “Andrea wants you to know it’s terrible and she could have done a better job all by herself, and also ask where they should put it.”

“I don’t know. Wherever the teens are going to eat, I guess.” Meg shrugged. “Why does it matter?”

“Yeah, that’s what I told her,” Benny agreed. He still stood in the doorway, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “She, uh… okay, I’m gonna be honest. She sort of wanted to have an excuse to ask you to come down.”

“Why? Is there a problem?” Meg asked.

“No, not a problem, no.” Benny shook his head, but he still looked awkward as hell. “It’s just… you know, she wants you to talk to… the girl.”

“What girl?”

“The girl,” Benny repeated, as if it was self-explanatory. When Meg didn’t say a word, he started gesturing nervously. “You know… the one Tom… and her baby, too.”

Meg’s jaw hanged open. “What? Why is she here?”

“She started working for the catering company, apparently,” Benny explained. “Look, if you don’t want to see them, I’ll tell Andrea to let it be.”

Castiel watched Meg carefully. She really had no reason to want to see it. It was Tom’s mess after all and she had no reason to want to get involved in it.

Meg seemed to be thinking the same thing, but as usual, she didn’t do what Castiel could’ve reasonably expected her to do. Instead, she straightened her shoulders and stuck out her chin.

“No,” she said, calmly. “I’ll be right down.”

“Are you sure?”

Meg glared at him and Benny seemed to get the message, because he disappeared through the door. Meg took a deep breath and turned to Castiel.

“So… what am I supposed to do?”

“You already said you were coming down,” Castiel pointed out.

“Yeah, but…” Meg shook her head and let out an uncomfortable laugh. “You know, while I didn’t see it, it made no difference. She wasn’t really real. But now she’s here and… I’m an aunt, Castiel. That’s weird. What are aunts supposed to do?”

Castiel couldn’t help the thrum of tenderness in his chest. Of course Meg wasn’t going to back down from it. Family was far too important for her.

“She’s what? A year old,” he reminded her. “I doubt she would even know who you are, so I don’t think it matters.”

“Right. So I only have to make not an ass of myself in front of the girl so she might consider letting me see the kid again.”

“Do you even want to see the kid again?”

Meg didn’t answer to that. She merely straightened her shoulders and marched towards the door oozing so much confidence that it was hard to believe she was a ball of nerves not two seconds ago.

The encounter that followed was… extremely uncomfortable, at least at the beginning. There were packages of food and bowls filled with punch spread on the table and the counter, expecting to be served. Andrea and Nora were talking in the kitchen, near the table where the food was spread out. Andrea was smiling and touching her shoulder and all around being amicable and welcoming. Nora was eyeing the door as if she was looking for the nearest exit, as if she wanted to avoid a very uncomfortable encounter. If the way she stepped backwards and her eyes grew wider when she saw Meg walk in were anything to go by, that was just the case.

Meg also seemed to want to be anywhere but there, but she still smiled and walked directly towards her.

"Hello," she greeted her, casually. "Nora, was it? I don't think we were ever properly introduced."

"Uh... yes," Nora said. She cleared her throat and also stuck her chin, as if she wanted to show to Meg she wasn't at all intimidated by seeing her. "You must be Meg."

"The one and only."

The conversation could have died a painful death right there if it wasn't because Castiel felt a tiny hand hanging onto his shirt and pulling him down. The little girl trying to get his attention had short curls over her head and the same big brown eyes as Meg. She was staring at Cas curiously while sucking on her pacifier and clinging unto a teddy bear with the other hand. Castiel had never been good with small children, but he still tried to smile and be polite to her.

"Hello," he told her, offering her his hand. "Nice to meet you, too."

"Tammy, don't bother the good sir," Nora said, taking a step towards him to scoop her daughter up.

"Oh, no, she wasn't bothering me," Castiel assured her. "Not at all, she's..."

He hesitated to say she was smart, because he hadn't been with her long enough for her to make an impression. He also didn't want to call her "cute" because he felt that would only add to the weirdness of this already painful meeting.

Luckily, Nora kept talking before he could make a fool of himself.

"I'm sorry. She just learned to walk a few weeks ago and now I can't even take my eyes off her..."

"That's Tom kid?"

Meg's directness caught Nora by surprise. She held Tammy closer to her chest, as if she feared that Meg was going to try to take her away from her, but when she spoke, she once again did it with incredible confidence.

"Yes."

Meg approached her and crouched a little to observe her. The baby frowned at her and Meg stuck out her tongue. Tammy laughed and then hid her face in her mother's chest.

That defused the tension. A little bit, at least.

"She... she likes you," Nora said. She sounded astonished by that development.

"How do you know? Does she talk?"

"Oh, just a few phrases. She's still learning and usually she's very shy around strangers. She's probably a little overwhelmed right now because she doesn't know where she is and her bed time is soon, so I'm counting on the ride back to town to rock her to sleep..." Nora's voice trailed off, as if only then she realized that was the most she had spoken in a while. "Speaking of which, I should go. Soon…"

"Tom isn't here, if that's what you're worried about," Meg stated.

"Oh," Nora repeated. She seemed to deflate a little, but a second later, she was pinching her nose and chuckling in relief. "I… oh, God, I was so scared I was going to run into him."

"Don't worry. He doesn't come around a lot," Meg said. "Last time he was here was a couple of weeks ago."

"He was in town?" Nora asked, again, as if that information was of vital importance. "I'm sorry, I'm surprised. I've been calling him for months and my lawyer can't track him down. We were supposed to meet for a mediation for the child support."

She went quiet again. Of course it couldn't be easy to reveal all of those details to a room of people who were virtually strangers she wasn't sure wouldn't gossip about her businesses all over town. Castiel could have tell her that everybody in that room was entirely loyal to Meg. She wouldn't have even come down to meet Nora if that wasn't the case.

"Yeah. Sounds like Tom." Meg's smile was bitter, but Nora relaxed a little at the shared contempt for Tammy's father. She lowered her eyes to her daughter and fixed her hair a little.

"I know he didn't want to be a dad and I don't want to force him to," she explained. "I just want him to help us a little bit, you know? I'm working two jobs and it's not easy juggling the shifts. If I could quit just one… I'm sorry, I don't mean to put all of this on you."

"Don't worry about it," Meg said. She was looking at the kid again, almost with curiosity before she analyzed Nora's face again. "You know, if you want to, you can leave her here, just… whenever you need to."

"Oh, no," Nora said, looking embarrassed again. "I wouldn't… I don't want to impose that on you."

"Who says you'll be imposing on me?" Meg laughed. "Andrea would be the one doing all the babysitting. Don't make that face, this was all your idea."

Andrea immediately erased her offended expression (which Meg hadn't even turned to look at), but she crossed her arms over her chest. Castiel thought he saw her smirk, however. She must have been feeling very proud of herself.

"Well, I don't know about that," Nora said, still hesitant. "But, if we could visit sometimes. When Tom isn't here, of course."

"Of course."

They exchanged phone numbers and made some small talk about Tammy and her progress as a tiny human being starting her life until Nora reminded her again that it was getting quite late for Tammy. Meg made another face at her and the little girl waved before Nora finally left.

"See? That wasn't so bad," Andrea said, with a smile.

"Next time you pull a stunt like this, I will fire you," Meg threatened. It was an empty promise and everybody on the room knew it. "But yeah, it went a lot worse in my head. Remind me to call my lawyer."

"What for?"

"I want to know if there's some way to screw Tom over this financially."

That was so generous and so incredibly petty at the same time Castiel couldn't help but to snort. He tried to pass it off as a cough, but he was sure he didn't fool anybody. Andrea snickered and Benny laughed openly.

"Hey," Claire asked, walking into the kitchen. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing." Meg rolled her eyes at them and turned to her. "Your food is over there."

"Awesome. Right on time, too. The DJ just arrived," Claire said, looking particularly happy about it. "It's party time."

 

* * *

 

Claire had never arrived at a party on time, preferring to be fashionably late so the party was in full swing when she and her friends finally made their entrance. Now that she had to stay there since the beginning and help organize it, she realized she had been completely on the right doing just that. Some people showed up early and all they could do was stand around making small talk with classmates with whom she wouldn't otherwise interact or have Lisa, Jody or Castiel insisting on taking "just one more picture" or preventing Ben from gobbling up all the sandwiches ("It has to last the entire night, dude. Get a grip of yourself").

But after an hour, the party bus arrived (they had decorated it with paper wreaths and Christmas lights and they were signing so loud they could hear them even from inside the house) and well, there was that. The DJ started the music and soon both the living room and the party tent became dance floors so over flooded with people it was impossible to move without stepping on someone's toes.

The grown-ups had positioned themselves strategically to prevent anyone from getting in trouble: Benny was near the stairs so no one could sneak up to the rooms to hook up, Jody and Castiel moved around the two dance floors making sure no one was sneaking outside and Dean hanged around the punch bowl so no one had the brilliant idea to try and spike it. Principal Sands and some other teachers were there as well, but Claire had the impression they disappeared after a while. Or maybe they were so used to chaperoning dances that they were experts at making themselves invisible.

Claire caught a glimpse of Henry and his goons and they glared at each other, but with so many adults scattered around, it was likely they wouldn't even come near. So she stopped thinking about it and actually, after a while, she started enjoying herself. Not enough to not hate the fact she had to scream to make herself heard over the music, but to forget her inhibitions and actually say yes when Ben asked her to dance.

"Try not to step on my toes too much!"

"You're the one who's wearing heels!"

They danced two songs together, laughing every time they bumped into a table or into someone else. Alexis showed up after a while and the three of them grabbed their hands and spun around, until they were completely red-faced and thirsty. So Claire and Alexis decided to step outside and tasked Ben with the mission of bringing them punch "because you're such a gent, come on".

The night was chilly and Claire offered Alexis to come closer and threw her shawl around both their shoulders. It did very little to protect them from the cold, but at the very least they were standing near each other, their arms brushing and sharing body heat. And that was about as good as it got, in Claire's opinion.

"You having fun?" Alexis asked.

"Surprisingly, yes," Claire admitted. "Don't tell my uncle I said that."

"Your secret's safe with me," Alexis promised with a laugh. But suddenly, her expression turned serious. "So, you and Ben?"

"Me and Ben what?"

"You were... dancing pretty close," Alexis said and cleared her throat.

"Yeah, that's because the place's packed and there's barely any room to move," Claire pointed out.

"You know what I meant," Alexis said, clicking her tongue and looking away.

Only then it dawned on Claire what she was trying to say. She leaned over and examined her friend's face.

"Wait, you thought...?" she started and then her voice trailed off, because she wasn't sure what Alexis had thought exactly. Well, she believed she had an idea, but it was so ridiculous that it wasn't even worth considering. But wasn't it? Alexis didn't know Claire wasn't into boys and from her perspective, it might have seen a little different. "You thought Ben and me...?"

"Well, Ben likes you, doesn't he?" Alexis blurted out and her face turned red again, but this time it had nothing to do with the dancing.

"I mean, yeah, I guess he must like me. Otherwise, why would he hang out with me?" Claire replied.

The joke fell flat. Alexis was trying to bring up something serious (at least, Claire thought it was serious) and she was trying to deflect and deny.

But simply because she felt she should like Ben in that way. It made a strange sort of logic: Ben was a great guy, he was goofy, he was supportive, they had a lot in common and they got along great. She should have a crush on Ben, she should want to be his girlfriend, because that was what girls did, didn't they? They fell for the dorky, sweet guy who liked them back and everything was great.

And yet, Claire was looking at Alexis' grey eyes and wanting to tangle her fingers in her hair and show her exactly why she could never date Ben. Goddammit, she looked so beautiful in that pink dress, and she was so smart and dedicated and funny that Claire only just managed to turn off the stupidly gay part of her brain before it led her to say something she would regret.

"I mean... I don't know. He hasn't said anything to me," she replied, shrugging. "And even if he did, you know? I don't like him that way. He's my friend."

"So if he came out and said anything, you would just friend-zone him?" Alexis asked. "Permanently?"

"Dude, I would brother-zone him," Claire replied, with another laugh. "I could never like Ben that way. It's just... not in me."

Was that akin to an admission? She didn't know. She didn't know if Alexis would get it and a part of her was terrified she would, but then there was another that just plain didn't care. Maybe it was the effect of the night, the adrenaline from the dance still pumping in her veins, but she was beginning to believe that Alexis finding out about her perhaps wasn't the worst thing that could happen to her. She was tired of hiding herself. She was tired of being careful and afraid, she was tired of feeling like she was deceiving her best friend.

Alexis frowned at her, as if she didn't understand what she meant.

Claire opened her mouth (she had no idea what she was going to say) but then Ben showed up with the punch for everybody.

"There you go, pretty ladies," he said, putting on an exaggerated southern accent. "Anythin' else I can do for ya? Lend you my jacket? Hug you so you can zap body heat from me?"

"You're not that hot," Claire replied. Ben clutched his chest and let out a whimper as if she had hurt his feelings and Alexis chuckled.

"You're both dorks," she told them. She downed the punch in one gulp and grabbed both Claire's hand and Ben's arm. "Let's keep dancing!"

The conversation completely slipped from Claire's mind, lost as she was between the laugher and the music. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had that much fun, and perhaps that should have been a warning sign. A sign that everything was going to go to hell in no time.

The DJ stopped the music a while later.

"How are you doing, Northeast High?" he asked, and everybody cheered and clapped with enthusiasm. "Alright, that's what I like to hear! You got five more minutes to cast your vote to crown the Winter King and Queen, so if you haven't done that already, don't forget to!"

"You guys wanna go do that?" Alexis offered.

"I cannot think of a lamest thing you couldn't pay me to do," Claire replied, rolling her eyes.

"I already voted," Ben added. "I voted for Claire, because she's a stone cold bitch."

Claire punched him the bicep and they all laughed one more time. They went to stand on a corner of the tent while the DJ called everybody to gather around the stage decorated with white balloons and more wreaths. Claire quite liked the decoration Alexis and the committee had come up with, but she was also pretty certain the mistletoe on the porch’s ceiling had been going overboard just a little bit. It had been funny the first few times the adults had to remind making out couples to leave some room for Jesus, but now it was just getting tiresome.

"Alright, we have the results right here. Thank you, Sheriff," the DJ said when Jody passed him the papers. "Principal Sands, please come up, we're going to announce the Winter King and Queen!"

Principal Sands strutted unto the stage in a blue pantsuit and with her red hair styled over hear head in a severe hairdo. Claire could have sworn they could hear a pin drop as her heels clicked on the stage. She was followed Mr. Henricksen, the Math teacher, and Mr. Rogers, the English teacher, who were carrying the fake crowns on pillows. Neither seemed happy to be there and Claire suspected they only were because Principal Sands had threatened to make their lives Hell if they didn't climb on the stage with her.

"Alright!" the DJ repeated, as if that would make things any less awkward. "Here we go! And the Winter King, as voted by you, Northeast High is... Henry Weiler! Come up to the stage, Henry!"

Their classmates applauded and cheered, so loud that they drowned out Claire and Ben's boos. Alexis shook her head at them.

"Come on, guys. It's not worth it."

"Well, he's still a dick," Ben said. And that was undeniable: Henry was strutting on the stage, smiling as if he was oh, so great and waving at the girls before he ducked a little so Principal Sands could put the crown on his head.

If Claire had had a tomato on hand, she would have tossed it at him without a second of hesitation.

"There we go, very nice!" the DJ commented at the cheering. "And now for the Queen, and she is... Tracy Davis!"

The clapping and cheering was even louder now. Tracy, a blonde girl in a violet dress that Claire knew only by sight, let out a scream of excitement that sounded at least partially fake, hugged her friends and climbed onto the stage rather easily for the pair of killer pumps she was wearing. The boys howled and whistled at her (because boys were jerks) and after she was also crowned, she stood next to Henry, smiling wide and waving for the flashes taking pictures of her. She was extremely pretty, that was undeniable, in that "my mom paid for a professional hairdresser and make-up artist for me" kind of way. She had a beautiful smile and it wasn't hard imagining her posing for a magazine cover or appearing on TV.

Claire still thought Alexis was prettier, but she wasn't at all surprised when Henry put a hand around Tracy’s waist, spun her around and started sucking face with her. It would have been extremely satisfying if she had pushed him away and punched him for being a dick and kissing her without asking, but of course, that didn't happen. Tracy put her arms around his neck and kissed him back while the crowd cheered on until Principal Sands made them knock it off. Henry smirked, seemingly in their direction, but Claire had stopped paying attention to them, instead tuning completely towards Alexis.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Alexis seemed astonished, her eyes open wide and her posture rigid, but right after Claire asked her that, a small smile appeared on her lips.

"Yeah," she said with a chuckle. "Yeah, I'm more than fine! Maybe this means he won't bother me again."

Claire could see how that was an excellent thing and smiled back at her. And then Alexis surprised her again: she put her arms around her neck and pulled her in for a hug so tight it almost knocked the air out of her long.

"Group hug!" Ben shouted, putting his arms around them and almost making them lose their balance. Claire shouted at him that he was worse than her dog and Ben replied that at least he was cute, all while Alexis laughed out loud in pure happiness.

They didn't win anything, but it definitely felt like they had.

 

* * *

 

"Claire!"

As it was usual when Claire walked into a room and he was talking to Meg, Castiel jumped backwards, as if he was physically trying to put as much distance as it was humanly possible between him and his boss. Claire figured that was her fault, since it had been her who had suggested he had a crush on her and now he felt compelled to show her that wasn't the case, at all, even if he looked like a startled porcupine every time he did. It was hilarious to Claire, and if the way Meg snickered was any indication, she agreed.

"Hey, I just came for some water," Claire said. She started the fridge and started rummaging around.

She felt awfully dehydrated. They had drunk what felt like an entire bowl of punch during the night and she and Alexis had sneaked upstairs together to the bathroom at least one time. They had danced until they had to take off their heels because they were making their feet sore and teased Ben to no end when he declared he could no longer keep up with them.

It didn't matter, though, because by then the DJ had put on softer music for the handful of people remaining. Claire and Alexis had danced barefoot in front of the chimney while Ben encouraged them from the couch.

And now the sun was coming up and Claire was exhausted, but happy. Happy enough that she was letting the stupidly gay part of her brain run unbridled. Happy enough that she dared believe that Alexis had understood what she meant when she said she could never like Ben. Happy enough that she was thinking perhaps she could ask her to go out, just two of them, run to the cliffs listening to their favorite Yellowcard songs and she could finally confess how she felt. Happy enough that in her mind the sunset beyond the window was blood red and romantic and not short and grey as it would be since it was winter.

And she couldn't bring herself to care when her uncle looked at her weird.

"I thought you would have gone to sleep by now," he commented.

"I was having a good time." Claire shrugged. It didn't even matter if Castiel noticed how out of character that was for her. "I thought you would have gone to sleep too," she retorted.

"And not make sure that every single one of you, hormone-riddled beasts was out of my ranch by sunrise?" Meg asked, crooking an eyebrow. "No way."

"Yes, I was... keeping her company," Castiel said and cleared his throat, as if he thought Claire wasn't going to believe that. He was a people pleaser, of course he would stick around if Meg asked him to.

"Well, they'll be gone in a bit," Claire promised. She took out two bottles and uncapped one to gulp some water down. "Mr. Winchester's seeing that everybody gets on board the party bus so they can take them home and Jody's using the phone tree to check that everyone who left early already got home or is with someone who's going to take them there."

"That's great. Do they need any help?" Castiel asked.

"I think they got it covered. I'm going to say goodbye to Alex and Ben and then I'm gonna go to bed."

Castiel nodded and kept looking at her as if that hadn't been a complete sentence.

"So... goodnight, I guess," Claire added.

"Right, of course. Goodnight."

Her uncle was even more distracted than usual. Claire wondered if it was an effect of the sleepless night or if there was something in her state of euphoria and hopefulness that she was totally missing.

It didn't matter either way. She was going to take the bottle to Alexis and give back her cellphone (which Alexis had given her for safekeeping since Claire's dress had pockets) and they were going to agree on a date to gather during the winter break and...

Claire opened the door and stopped in her tracks. What she was seeing pulled her down from her high so fast that at first she didn't exactly registered it, she couldn't bring herself to understand what was going on.

The mistletoe was still hanging on top of the porch, miraculously. It hadn't been knocked down by the people bringing down the party tent or by the dozens of couples that must have made out underneath it. Even though there should be no one left, even though everyone should have been gone by now, there was another couple kissing underneath it.

And she knew who they were. She recognized the pink dress and the black raven hair and the glasses that were hanging just a bit lopsided from the guy's ear. She was just so shocked that for a second, her brain went into absolute denial mode.

But of course, reality sank in fast enough, making her knees tremble and her stomach churn. Her first impulse, as it was with many things, was to get angry. To shout. To interrupt them and demand an explanation, on how the hell could they have done this to her. They were friends. How could they...?

And then she realized that was stupid. It was stupid to pretend she was owed anything from them. It had been stupid to let herself be carried away by her fantasies of Alexis magically realizing the truth about her and wanting to get with her.

It was stupid, stupid, stupid. And she didn't want to confront it. She didn't want them to turn around and see her standing there with tears brimming in her eyes and feeling like the floor had just been snatched from underneath her.

She took out Alexis' cellphone and carefully put it in the window's ledge for her to find. She must have made a noise anyway, because Alexis and Ben broke apart just as she spun on her heels and headed back inside. She heard Ben calling her, but she ignored it, she ignored Andrea's questioning look as she flew upstairs and down the hall. She closed the door of the guest's room behind her and leaned against it. Her legs finally gave in and she slid to the floor, sitting among the folding of her skirt.

And only then she let the full force of her heartbreak hit her. She hid her face in her hands and sobbed for what felt like hours.


	25. Fallout

There was something smothering him. Something soft that smelled like lemon that was covering his mouth and weighing down on his chest, like an anchor pining him down against the mattress and suffocating him.

Castiel stirred awake only to find that the thing covering his mouth was Meg's hair. At some point during the night, she had climbed on top of him and curled up over his chest. He gently put a hand on her shoulder and tried to rock her, but that only got Meg to groan and sink her face on his neck even further.

"Meg," he muttered, a little amused. "What happened to not being a big fan of cuddling?"

"It's cold and you hog the sheets," she muttered, drowsily.

"I most certainly do not."

Meg muttered something in response that he didn't quite catch and settled against him even harder. Castiel put a hand on her back and caressed it up and down until she shivered and looked up at him.

"Don't start something you cannot finish," she warned him, showing her teeth.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, as he distractedly moved his hand down to place it on the curve of her ass. "I'm just trying to give you the body heat that you crave."

Meg wasn't fooled for a second. She put her hands at both sides of his head and hoisted herself up, spreading her legs right over his crotch to straddle him. She was wearing a flimsy nightgown made of silk that was thoroughly inadequate for the weather and that might have been the reason she was so cold. Still, Castiel appreciated that she had put it on for him, especially because the low neckline gave him a spectacular view of her neck and the top of her breasts when she sat up. He put her hands in his waist to help her keep her balance as she leaned over and grabbed her cellphone from the night table.

"Holy shit, it's twelve o'clock," she informed him, her eyes opening wide in panic. She rubbed her eyes and cranked her neck. "We should get up and get some brunch if we want to..."

Castiel grabbed her by her waist and turned her over. Meg yelped as she fell on the bed and this time it was him who was hovering on top of her, immobilizing her with his body.

"Have you ever heard of sleeping in?"

"Yes. It's for lazy people who never have to... uh."

The rest of her words dissolved in a soft moan when he started muzzling her neck and sliding her hand up her nightgown. She melted underneath his touch and he started trailing down kisses down her shoulders.

"Okay, maybe we can stay in bed for another half hour," she sighed. "But afterwards, we have to get up. Cas, are you even listening to me?"

"Does this half hour include shower time?" he asked, crooking an eyebrow at her. Meg's smirk was full of mischievousness.

"Great minds think alike."

It was... strange. Castiel couldn't say he didn't enjoy it, but this was different than their usual mornings waking together. That was because this was the first time he could recall that they had actually woken up together. Usually, by the time he gathered up the willpower to open his eyes, she was already in the shower or getting dress or gone altogether, leaving him a note to tell him she expected him for breakfast. Even when they had stayed at the cabin, they didn't have a chance to engage in this morning friskiness, in the playfulness of staying in bed without even thinking about the day ahead.

And they weren't in some random hotel room. They were in her bedroom, in her bed and that meant something different, somehow. He couldn't count the times he had looked up at her window and wondered what she might have been thinking, what she might have been doing. He didn't want to think of it as some form of intimacy, since she had made it clear she wasn't looking for that sort of thing.

But at the same time, it was hard not to look up at her face, her tousled hair over the pillow and realize how far they had come from those first weeks when all they did was yell at each other.

Meg gave him a sleepy smile and pushed him away from where he had collapsed on her chest.

"No, come on," Castiel complained. "Five more minutes."

"We have to start the day, Cas," she insisted. "We're not a couple of teenagers that had a party last night. We're adults and we have responsibilities. Besides, wasn't you the one who wanted to take a shower?"

She had a point.

And he was thinking it would be worth it to start waking up early just so he could have the chance of seeing her like that: the water cascading down her body, her long black hair wet over her shoulders. It was a sight to behold.

Hopefully no one would notice that he smelled like her shampoo. It was easy to forget there was a whole world outside they had to avoid, when it was just so easy to be there, the two of them, as if there was no one else. It was an illusion easily shattered though.

"Go check if Andrea is already up," she instructed him as she sat on the closed toilet wrapped in her towel.

"You're awfully bossy in the mornings," Castiel groaned. He wiped the mirror and took a look at himself. The fuzz over his cheeks was pretty noticeable, but he could excuse it with the fact it was late and he was too lazy to shave at that hour of the morning anyway.

"I'm awfully bossy all the time. You should know by now." Meg grabbed her creams and silently started applying it on her legs. Castiel looked at her with a smile. "I hope you're not having any weird ideas about interrupting my beauty routine, Cas. You think this just stays as good as it is without any work on my part?"

Castiel laughed and kissed her on the top of the head before he headed for the bedroom and got dressed. He watched out of the window for a moment: the sky looked grey and barren, still no signs of any snow that would come down anytime soon. It was hard to believe it was almost Christmas already. He would have to go to New Haven to get some presents. Nothing expensive for Claire – not after the havoc she had wreaked on his credit card the previous week.

But it was a pleasant feeling, this idea that they would get to spend Christmas together, waiting for the New Year to arrive. They were certain to be many surprises and if everything went as he hoped, in a few months they would be celebrating Morningstar's championship and perhaps the ranch would have some more room to breathe and that would make Meg happy…

He shook his head to stop from thinking that far ahead. For now, he had to focus on brunch.

He wasn't expecting what he saw when he opened the door and it immediately obliterated every pleasant thought he might have had that morning.

Claire was outside, wearing her pajama pants and loose shirt, having just come out of the bathroom at the other end of the hallway and heading back towards the guest's room. It was clear she intended to spend the day in bed and Castiel wouldn't have said anything about it (it was the first day of the winter break and she'd had a party the night before, after all) if it wasn't for her face. She was pale and her eyes were puffy, with dark circles underneath them. It looked like she hadn't slept a wink and instead spent a better part of the morning crying her heart out.

"Claire?" he called out.

Claire halted suddenly, blinking at him as if she was surprised to see him.

"I thought you'd be in the field already," she said, with a hoarse voice.

"What happened to you?" Castiel asked, taking a step closer to her. "Are you okay?"

Claire avoided his gaze and crossed her arms over her chest, defensively.

"I'm fine," she lied.

"Claire, talk to me," Castiel insisted.

"I said I'm fine!" she snapped at him.

Castiel could have convinced her to tell him what was wrong, he could have talked her into telling him how he could help. He had seen her in distress before and he had to let her know that if there was something he could do at all, he would do it. Perhaps that would be enough or perhaps she would need something else from him. Whatever it was, they could figure it out together.

Meg couldn't have chosen a worse possible moment to open the door, still pinning the towel to her body and her wet hair dripping over her shoulders as if to leave no doubt she had just come out of the shower.

"Hey, you forgot your cell..." she said, before she interrupted herself. She took in the situation and held onto the towel tighter, as if that would change anything. "Oh."

Claire looked at her, then at Castiel, and every chance to pacifically solve whatever her problem was vanished in thin air.

"Oh, great, you're a liar too," Claire groaned and briskly walked past him and slammed the door of the guest's room in her wake.

"Claire, wait!" he tried to say. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. "It's not what it looks like," he said, although he wasn't sure what kind of excuse he could come up with to justify that statement.

"Leave me alone!" Claire howled from inside of the room. "I don't wanna talk to you!"

"Claire..."

A hand came to rest on his shoulder and Meg gently pulled him away from the door.

“I don’t think you should…”

“Meg, please,” Castiel said, gritting his teeth to try to keep his temper under control. “I know you mean well, but this… just… stay out of it, please.”

Meg stared at him wide-eyed, as if it surprised him that he would dismiss her so brusquely.

“Fine,” she said, a little sharper than he was expecting and retreated back into her room.

Castiel stayed in the hallway, knocking on Claire’s door and trying to convince her to talk to him, but she refused to answer, not even to tell him to go away again. So in the end, Castiel leaned his forehead against the wood, defeated. He should have come clean to her sooner. He should have…

“Cas, come on,” Meg’s voice came from behind him. She had got dressed to start the day and she was buttoning up her jacket quickly, looking at him as if she was wondering how come he still hadn’t given up on talking to Claire. “She’s a teenager. If she doesn’t want to talk to you, she won’t.”

“This isn’t any of your concern!” Castiel replied, a little louder than he intended.

He also realized, way too late, that had come out even more aggressive than before. Meg’s cheeks went red and for a second, for just a fraction of a second, he saw that look in her eyes that infuriated him so many months before: the utter indifference and contempt for him, as if he didn’t matter to her at all as long as he could do his job.

“Well, then, I won’t concern myself with it,” she replied, coldly. “But I expect you to be down in fifteen minutes tops. This is still your job, after all.”

She marched away without even sparing him another look. So now he had managed to piss both of them in less than ten minutes. And to think the day had started so well.

He sighed and knocked on the door again.

“Claire, I know you’re mad,” he told her. “But we need to talk about this, okay? I’ll come back later.”

Only silence from the other side. That worried him, but short of bursting through the door and demand she talked to him, there really was nothing he could do.

He climbed the stairs to find Andrea in the kitchen, preparing what seemed to be sandwiches and orange juice.

“Good morning,” she greeted him. Her smile faltered when she saw Castiel’s face. “Or… not so good?”

“Where’s Meg?” Castiel asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

“You just missed her. She said she was going to let _Morningstar_ stretch his legs. Did something happened?” Andrea asked. She took a step closer to him, so Castiel couldn’t escape her gaze. “Did you fight?”

“Well, yes. But, uh…”

“Did you do something in her room?” Andrea asked. “She’s very particular about some of her things.”

Castiel’s first instinct was to deny it, as usual, but given that was what got him into trouble with Claire in the first place, he really didn’t have the energy to.

“How did you know?” he asked, knowing full well that was equivalent to a full-on admission.

“I have eyes,” Andrea replied with a shrug.

Which meant they weren’t as discreet as they thought they were being. And also, if Andrea knew, it was as likely that Benny knew. That would frustrate Meg to no end.

Andrea snickered, probably guessing what Castiel was thinking.

“Sit down,” she advised him. “Benny already let the horses out of the stable, so you shouldn’t worry about them. And you shouldn’t worry about Meg either.”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“Nah. I know her. She gets mad, but then she calms down just as easily. Especially if you just let her run on her horse for a while,” Andrea said. She poured the juice in a glass and gently pushed it towards Castiel. “You’ll need your energy for the day.”

Castiel didn’t think he could eat, but the second he took a bite out of the sandwich, he realized just how hungry he was despite the conflicts. His stomach didn’t seem to care just how worried he was about both Claire and Meg. He thanked Andrea and asked her to keep an eye in case Claire came down looking for food. He wanted to know in what state she was going to be in when he tried to talk to her again later.

But the thing was; he really had no idea what to tell her. “Yes, I lied to you. It wasn’t because I don’t trust you, it was because I didn’t think you would understand. No, I’m not calling you stupid or anything like that. I just didn’t want you to know. Not because I don’t trust you…”

He sighed. It was going in circles and it didn’t help at all that Benny took one look at him and asked:

“Lover’s quarrel?”

“Let’s get to work,” Castiel groaned.

He tried to focus on giving the horses the attention they needed for the next couple of hours, but after he almost broke the cinch trying to adjust it on _Zeus_ (the horse neighed very loud to let him know just what he thought about him), Benny told him to take a break.

“If you need to talk to Meg, she’s at the track running laps with _Morningstar_ ,” he informed him.

“I don’t think she wants to see me…”

“Go, chief,” Benny said, shooting him a look that could be either compassion or exasperation.

Castiel guessed there was no point in postponing it any longer.

 _Morningstar_ ’s hooves against the ground rumbled like thunder. He breezed past Castiel with Meg almost standing on his back, her body tilted forwards and utter concentration on her face and the chronometer hanging from her neck. She was either so focused on her race that she didn’t notice him or flat out ignored him. Castiel watched her go, as always impressed by the raw absorption in her face, how much control she had managed over such a beast. He counted the seconds mentally and was about to shout the results to her out of sheer habit when she approached the curve of the track. Too sharply.

He shouted her name a second before Meg flew away from the saddle. She rolled over a couple of times on the ground and stayed still. Too still. Castiel ran up to her, panic clutching his chest until he saw her groan and lift her head.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her immediately.

“I’m fine. Goddammit,” she muttered. She dodged the hand Castiel was offering her and stood on swaying legs. “I don’t know what’s with him today. He’s being difficult.”

 _Morningstar_ , free from the weight of his rider, slowed down and pranced down the track, dragging the reins through the dirt. He seemed very pleased with himself.

“Maybe… he perceives the tension in you?” Castiel suggested. It was a clumsy way to bring up the issue, but he really couldn’t think of anything better.

They stayed in silence for a moment, avoiding each other’s eye as Meg dusted herself off. Finally, she sighed and met his gaze.

“What?” she asked, as if it was him who had got angry at her.

“I just…” Castiel started and stopped. He had no idea what to tell her, in fact.

“I assume you came here to apologize for shouting at me,” she suggested, arching an eyebrow.

Castiel pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself he really… cared about Meg. A lot. He wasn’t going to let this come between the two of them.

“Yes, that was wrong,” he admitted. “But you have to understand, it was a delicate situation with Claire.”

“It’s always a delicate situation with her, Cas, she’s seventeen,” Meg pointed out. “At that age, everything feels like it’s the end of the world.”

“I can’t have her not trusting me for something like this, Meg,” he argued. “If she has troubles, I want her to know that she can come to me. That’s… I can’t jeopardize that.”

“Need I remind you it was you who didn’t want to tell her in the first place?”

She was right. Of course she was and Castiel felt like an idiot for it. If he had got over himself, his own doubts, his own hesitations about his relationship with Meg, he could have told Claire sooner and all of this would have been avoided. He would know by now the real reason Claire had been crying and he could have given her some sort of advice or consolation.

Meg kept staring at him, almost as if she was waiting for him to finish realizing all of those things.

“I get it, okay?” she said. “You want to protect the kid. You care about her. I do too…”

“You do?” Castiel interrupted her, a little taken aback by that confession.

Meg shifted in her place awkwardly and cross her arms over her chest, defensive.

“Well, I kind of have to, don’t I? You’re a two for one deal.”

Castiel’s jaw slacked open and he closed it again, almost immediately. Of all the things he had expected her to say, that he could have possibly expected her to admit, that had to be the last one. Was she saying…? Did she really mean…?

“Why is that surprising?” she asked, glaring at him, obviously angry again. “Can’t I care for her?”

“No,” Castiel said, shaking his head. “Of course you can.”

He took a step closer to her. Meg didn’t attempt to do the same thing, but she did let her arms fall down to the sides of her body, breathing out.

“Look, she’s mad at you right now and nothing you can say will make it go away,” she pointed out. “You have to wait until she calms down a little bit. And then just apologize to her. No excuses, no explanations. She won’t believe them anyway.”

She continued her strike of being right. Castiel put a hand on her cheek, tentatively, and when she didn’t step back or try to get away, he leaned over to kiss her. He realized they weren’t talking about Claire anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“Apology accepted,” she said. She placed her hand on top of his and drew a small circle with her thumb. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

“I’m still waiting for an apology for all the times you screamed at me, though,” he pointed out, playfully.

“That happened before we were…” She stopped talking and looked at him as if she couldn’t find a word for what they were doing. Castiel was also pretty certain that this wasn’t the right time to put a label on it. So he kissed her again to change the subject.

“By the way, Andrea and Benny know.”

“They do?” Meg groaned. “Of course they do.”

 

* * *

 

They didn’t stay in the track much longer. The afternoon got steadily colder and after a certain hour it was impossible to distinguish _Morningstar_ from the surrounding darkness. They called it a day early and took the horse back to the stables, where Benny was already rounding up and securing all the others. Meg got her grooming instruments and took a look around.

“Where’s _Percy_ ’s kid?” she asked after a moment.

Castiel realized that indeed, the chestnut was missing. Benny, who was filling up the trough, shrugged.

“Claire should be back with him any minute now.”

“Claire?” Castiel repeated.

“She said you gave her permission to take him for a ride,” Benny explained. He analyzed their faces for a moment and it slowly dawned on him. “Didn’t you?”

Castiel felt as if his stomach had flipped. She had no idea… she should not have gone out there alone! The horse wasn’t properly broken yet and if she’d tried to ride with him and he’d got nervous and bucked her off... she could be hurt. The night was seemingly going to be a very cold one and the ranch was too big, she could be anywhere. Why had she done that? When had she done that? She couldn’t possibly…

He did the only logical thing he could think of: he took out his cellphone and called her. It went straight to voicemail.

“She’s not answering,” he said, getting dizzy as the blood fled from his head.

Meg whipped out her own cellphone without a second hesitation.

“Andrea? Is Claire there? Could you check in her room for me?” The minutes passed in a tense silent. Castiel kept his eyes fixed on her and when she shook her head, he felt as if someone had punched him in the jaw. “Yes, check on the cabin as well and call me back if she’s there, but stay in the house in case she comes back. And let us know right away.”

“I’m sorry, brotha’,” Benny said, his mouth twisted up in a gesture of worry. “I didn’t know…”

“Benny, get us flashlights. Cas, saddle up _Zeus, Satrina_ and _Persephone_ ,” Meg said, taking the situation in stride as she did whenever there was a crisis. “We’re going to go looking for her, right now.”

Castiel needed a second to gather up his thoughts, but afterwards, he got into motion. He took out the saddles and started putting them on the horses as quickly as his suddenly cold fingers allowed him to. Meg had decided not to take _Morningstar_ , because while he was the fastest, he was also too aggressive and that was the last thing they needed right then. She was checking her cellphone over and over until it rang. Castiel stopped cinching up _Persephone_ to look at her, but she shook her head again.

“Andrea says only the dog was at the cabin,” she informed them.

For some reason, that sounded even worse to Castiel. Claire loved her dog to pieces, if she had left him behind…

“Cas,” Meg said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Her car’s still in the garage. She didn’t go anywhere. We’ll find her.”

The confidence in her voice gave him back some semblance of calmness. He nodded, because he was still too upset to talk, and took the flashlight Benny was giving to him before guiding the horses outside. Without a second hesitation, he jumped on top of _Persephone_ and sank his heels in her sides. He could hear _Zeus_ and _Satrina_ trotting behind him, but as they moved further away, he couldn’t pay attention to them anymore.

All that his mind focused on was finding Claire and making sure she was safe.

 

* * *

 

It was getting cold, far too cold, and so dark that Claire couldn’t see beyond her nose. She could make out the main house’s lights in the distance, though, so she was sure in which direction to guide the horse when she finally decided to leave. Which would have to be soon… soonish. She just… didn’t want to deal with her uncle right now. She didn’t want to deal with anybody, in fact.

She hadn’t looked back for a second once she was on top of _Leggers_. She hadn’t thought she wouldn’t be able to get him to stop when he broke into a brisk run and she had set him into the wider field without caring particularly which direction they took. For a couple of minutes, at least, it had been wonderful and she’d understood why Meg did it: up there, in the horse, with the breeze cutting her face, she felt incredibly free. Free from the heartbreak, from the anger, from the little black cloud that always seemed to be plaguing her thoughts. All of those problems stayed behind and when she’d looked over her shoulder, she’d thought they seemed smaller than ever.

Eventually _Leggers_ got tired and started shaking his head, which she took it to mean he wasn’t comfortable with having her up there for much longer. So she’d got down and guided him by the reins until they were near the creek before she took them off so he could graze the scarce grass and drink from the clear water. She leaned against a tree, breathing in the cool evening air and hugging herself because the jacket she had taken with her was far too thin.

But even though it was getting dark now, she didn’t want to go back. Her cellphone screen flashed a couple of times, but she turned it off. She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She wanted to extend this moment, for as long as she could, because right now, she didn’t have to think about anything that hurt. She could just stay there, watching as her horse trot around her and enjoyed the freedom as much as her.

“Wish I could be you,” she told him after a while. “Bet everything’s simpler.”

 _Leggers_ looked at her with his enormous brown eyes and blew some hot air in her face. Claire patted him in the muzzle and took the reins from where she had hanged them on a branch.

“I guess we have to go back before it gets late.”

 _Leggers_ didn’t agree, however. When she tried to pass the reins over his head, he shook his mane and moved away.

“ _Leggers_ , come on,” she called him. “It’s getting really dark. I’m already going to be in trouble for taking you without permission.”

 _Leggers_ trotted around, but still remained where she could reach him. However, the closer she got, the further away he moved. She had no idea if he thought they were playing or if he was just refusing to get the reins on because they bothered him. But whichever the case, this could be a problem she hadn’t anticipated. If he ran away, if she couldn’t catch him (she certainly had no hopes of catching him if that happened), she would have to walk in the dark towards the house.

Worse than that, _Leggers_ could get lost or hurt. These horses were goddamned expensive. Meg was going to be pissed beyond words and Claire didn’t think it’d particularly matter if she was sleeping with Castiel or not. She was going to kick them out of the property without a second hesitation or demand they paid her back for the damages. Claire had not thought this through and she was only now realizing it.

But she’d have time to kick herself mentally later. Right now she needed to persuade _Leggers_ to get close enough so she could ride him again. She tried pretending she had an apple in her fist, but the chestnut wouldn’t fall for it. He kept prancing up the creek as if he intended to jump it and if he did, they she’d really be screwed up. And oh, God, was he walking faster now?

She was about to call him again when another sound came: it was the clatter of another horse coming closer. A flashlight glimmered in the darkness and _Leggers_ got scared, neighing loud and trying to run away, but the rider in the other horse anticipated that movement: they moved around, cutting his step and they jumped down.

“Easy, boy,” Meg’s smoky voice reached Claire’s ears. “You had your fun. Now it’s time to come home.”

She approached _Leggers_ with confidence and patted him in the muzzle _. Leggers_ still seemed a little agitated, but after a few seconds, he calmed down and stood still. Meg looked at her in the dim light of the flashlight and Claire, without saying a word or admitting how much she was panicking just a second before, passed her the briddles.

“How did you find me?” she asked while Meg put them back on the chestnut.

“I also used to come here to sulk,” Meg replied calmly. She tied _Legger’s_ reins to _Zeus_ ’ saddle with incredibly ease.

“I wasn’t sulking.”

Meg stared at her with a crooked eyebrow and Claire looked away. She crossed her arms over her chest and refused to say another word. She supposed Meg was saving the scolding she deserved for when they came back, but she wasn’t getting back on the horse or ordering her to get on him. She was just looking at her as if she was expecting something.

“Alright,” she said after a while. “Let’s hear it.”

“Let’s hear what?” Claire groaned.

“Whatever is it that you have to tell me,” Meg explained. “Let it all out. I can take it.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” Claire tried to take a step towards the horses, but Meg stood in front her, opening her arms as if she was letting herself open to any attack she’d like to unleash on her. Claire felt the blood boiling in her veins and clenched her fists. “You’re a real bitch, you know?”

She regretted those words almost immediately. She expected Meg to get mad at her and tell her she had no right to speak to her like that (which she absolutely could), but that didn’t happen.

“I am aware,” Meg said calmly instead.

“Are you?” Claire let out a fake snicker, emboldened by the lack of reaction. “You have no friends except these horses and you know why that is? You are selfish and mean and you boss everybody all the time. You even do it to my uncle and he’s fucking you! What are you even doing with him? You’re going to fucking crush him like you do to everyone around you! Because you’re the worst!”

Meg didn’t react to her insults (granted, they were pretty lame as far as insults went) except to show her a sad little smirk.

“I know,” she said after a while. “And that’s why I like your uncle, Claire, and why you shouldn’t be afraid I’ll hurt him. I _am_ the worst, but he still sees something of worth in me.”

Claire opened her mouth. She wanted to let out another string of insults, but she was empty. She hadn’t expected that passivity, that full acceptance of her rage (that wasn’t even really directed at Meg if she was being honest). And in the face of nothing to rage against, she did the next best thing: she fell apart.

Despite the dim light, Meg saw her tears or perhaps she heard the sob Claire tried to choke back. She stepped forwards and without waiting for an indication, she put her arms around her and pulled her closer. Claire sank her face in her shoulder and cried. She didn’t think she had more tears left, not after everything she had cried last night, but apparently, she was wrong. Perhaps it was because of this unexpected kindness or understanding, but she just couldn’t hold it back at all. She shook and she cried and she didn’t know how long she stayed there, but it must have been a while. Meg didn’t try to move her or tell her to stop, she simply patted her in the back and held her until she calmed down.

“Better?” she asked after a while.

Claire let out another shaky breath that was meant to be a scoff, but it didn’t come out as well as she expected. Because she did, in fact, feel a lot better now.

“Alright, let’s get back. Andrea will make you cocoa.”

Claire mounted behind her without waiting for an indication. She hooked her arms around Meg’s waist as she set Zeus into a gentle trot.

“So do you want to tell what this really was about?” Meg asked as they headed for the distant main house lights.

“Not really,” Claire groaned. She didn’t even attempt to deny this had nothing to do with Meg and Castiel after all. She had the feeling it to would be completely useless to lie to Meg.

“Alright, then,” Meg shrugged. “Then let’s talk about the colt. Did you run with him?”

“Uh… yes?” Claire said, cringing because she had the impression that was at the top of the list of the things she definitely shouldn’t have done.

“And how’d it go?”

Claire talked about _Leggers_ all the way to the house. By the time they got there, she didn’t know if everything was alright. But she was definitely getting around that zone.


	26. A White Christmas

Castiel was mad at Claire, of course, but when he saw Meg arrived with his niece in the horse behind her, he only let the relief wash over him. He took her back to the cabin, where they went to bed without dinner because they were both exhausted and it would been really uncomfortable anyway. He saved all of it for the following day when Claire sat down to have her usual cup of coffee. At first, he started playing it cool, with the “We need to talk” and the “You do know you did something very stupid, don’t you?” but the more he spoke, the more his anger and worry got to him and almost without realizing it, he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

“You could have got hurt! You could have got lost! _Leggers_ isn’t fully trained yet, what if you lost control over him? What if you fell and broke your leg and couldn’t come back?!”

“Okay, but nothing happened,” Claire replied, with a huff and a roll of her eyes that indicated she thought Castiel was making a big deal out of nothing.

“But it could have!” Castiel insisted. “You’re old enough to know better, Claire. You took a horse that’s not fully broken yet and you lied to Benny. You realize that? He could have got in serious trouble because you implicated him on this!”

“Come on, implicating him? It wasn’t like I killed somebody and made him hide the corpse.”

“You still lied…”

“Okay, but just FYI, I really don’t think you have the moral high ground on the lying thing,” Claire interrupted him. “Mr. I-Am-Definitely-Sleeping-With-The-Person-I-Told-You-I-Wasn’t-Sleeping-With.”

“That is a discussion for another time,” Castiel replied, refusing to feel guilty for it. “And in any case, those are two very different scenarios.”

“Oh, yeah? So it’s okay to lie just some of the time?”

“No, it’s…” Castiel sighed and realized she was had won that one and there was no point in denying it. “It’s not okay to lie. I’m sorry. I should have told you when you asked.”

Claire opened her mouth and closed it again. She clearly didn’t expect him to give up so soon.

“Okay.” She took a sip of her coffee and shot him an interrogating look. “So… how long has that been going on?”

Castiel didn’t want to admit that he had been concealing this from her for months, so he subtly tried to change the topic.

“Tell you what: I’ll trade you,” he proposed. “I’ll give you the answer if you tell what this was really about.”

Claire grimaced. “Why do you assume there was an ulterior motive to this?” she asked. Castiel remained silent. “It was just… run of the mill teenage angst.”

“No.” Castiel shook his head. “I know your usual teenage angst. And this wasn’t it.”

Claire huffed and puffed for another minute, pretending to drink her coffee. In the end, she admitted the night of the dance had finished rather terribly for her: she had accidentally seen Alexis and Ben kissing underneath the mistletoe.

“Oh,” Castiel muttered.

“Oh?” Claire repeated. “That’s all you have to say?”

“No, that’s not all I have to say.” Castiel moved his chair closer to hers and put an arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I knew you liked her a lot and you must feel like you won’t like anyone ever again right now. But I can assure you will. You will meet other girls, other girls who will like you back. You may even fall in love with one of them someday. And when you do, all of this will be just a bad memory for you.” He leaned over and kissed her on top of the head. “Was that any better?”

“Yeah, actually,” Claire admitted, with a shy smile. “Much better.”

 

* * *

 

The snow finally came a few days later and even though Claire tried to use that as an excuse to hide away in the cabin and not even look outside of the window, Castiel didn’t let her. He knew that would be counterproductive, since she would be thinking about Alexis and it would only lead her to get even sadder. So he enlisted her help to plow the snow that had fallen over the tracks and some of the fields and when that was done, he allowed her to ride _Leggers_ (he had given into the ridiculous name after all, though Meg still referred to him strictly as “the colt” or “the chestnut”) because it was pretty clear there was no keeping the two apart. Whenever Claire was in the stables, the chestnut always touched her with his muzzle and demanded she give him a treat and Claire even learned the proper way to groom him. And as _Leggers_ learned to run faster, Claire’s posture and the way she held herself on the horse also improved.

“I don’t know if he’s going to make a racehorse,” Meg commented as they watched the two from the edge of the paddock.

“That’s because I’m not allowing them to run at the speed of one,” Castiel replied. “They’re not ready yet.”

“Maybe I should give it a try,” Meg suggested. “He can’t be worse than _Morningstar_.”

“There isn’t a horse in the world worse than that one,” Castiel agreed. The two turned to look at him.

_Morningstar_ was sulking away in his own paddock, glaring at them now and them because Meg had produced a red and green plaid horse blanket from somewhere and she had tricked him into using it outside because she didn’t want the cold to affect him. She’d also have blankets for the rest of the horses, but Castiel had the impression she had deliberately chosen to give the ugliest, least dignified one to _Morningstar_ and he seemed to know it as well.

“Oh, come on, don’t look so dejected,” Meg teased him. “If everything goes as plan, you won’t have to see another track until March. Just as well. The snow’s totally going to isolate us in a couple of weeks more.”

“We’ll have a white Christmas,” Castiel pointed out.

Meg made a noncommittal sound. He had noticed that there weren’t many decorations in the house and the only reason there was a Christmas’ tree at all in the house seemed to be because Andrea had put it up. Meg was definitely refusing to go along with the spirit of the holidays.

He slid closer to her and gently pressed a hand to her hip. Meg immediately lowered her hand and squeezed it. One of the advantages of the cat being out of the bag was that they didn’t have to hide it anymore. Castiel still felt uncomfortable kissing her in front of Claire or staying in the main house for the night (“I don’t want to leave Claire alone in the cabin and besides, she will know what we’re doing. Stop laughing, Meg, I’m serious”), but this little gestures of closeness made his heart thrum and warmed him up in the cold days they were having. They made them think that perhaps this was, after all, moving into a more serious territory than they originally planned.

“So, what do you do for Christmas around here?” he asked.

“Well, Andrea makes more food than anyone could possibly eat and then we feed on that until after New Year. If the food isn’t enough, Benny suggests we should kill one of the horses to eat them and then I say I would rather eat him. It’s always fun.”

“I mean, besides cannibalism jokes,” Castiel said with a chuckle. “How do you celebrate Christmas?”

Meg shifted uncomfortably were she stood and tried to let go of his hand, but Castiel squeezed even tighter.

“Meg? You do something for Christmas, don’t you?”

“Define ‘something’,” she muttered, still avoiding his eye.

“Exchange gifts?” Castiel tried. “Sing carols? Go to church?” Meg snorted as if he had suggested something completely ridiculous and Castiel had to admit it would be completely out of character for her to do it. “You know, sometimes communities have these gatherings after the mass…”

“I stay at home and mutter ‘Humbug!’ under my breath while three spirits try to convince me to accept the meaning of Christmas in my heart.” Meg rolled her eyes. “Why do we have to _do_ something? Do _you_ go to church? Are you even religious?”

“Well, I used to be growing up,” Castiel admitted. “Jimmy was, definitely. And so was Claire until her ‘crisis of faith’.” He drew air quotes, but it actually had been a pretty big deal when Claire had walked into the apartment and announced she was an atheist now because someone had told her she was going to hell for being a lesbian. (Castiel now suspected that had been Magda’s mother). “But it’s not really about religion, it’s about… I don’t know, celebration of a year that passed. Celebrating that you have your family and friends around you.”

“You know there’s literally two other holidays specifically to give thanks and to celebrate the beginning of a new year, right?”

“I know that, but Christmas is… Christmas,” Castiel insisted. “Just… a special occasion to remember all the reasons that make it worth it being alive.”

Meg laughed at him, shaking her head like she just couldn’t believe how cheesy he was being.

“Aren’t you just a regular Clarence,” she commented.

“I don’t know who that is.”

Meg didn’t explain it. Instead, she moved closer to bump her shoulder into his.

“Alright, fine, you win,” she told him, rolling her eyes, even though she was still smiling. “We’ll do a thing. But I’m not going to church.”

 

* * *

 

Andrea was excited to find that there would be people over, even though Meg’s definition of “people” was just Nora and her baby, because technically they were family. She was absolutely certain Tom wasn’t coming, since she wouldn’t have invited her otherwise. And since the snow by then was going to make the roads impossible, she also proposed Nora and the kid would be staying in the house.

“No one has used the main room in a while,” she explained. “Andrea, you’re going to have to open the windows and…”

“Way ahead of you,” Andrea replied. Her smile was simply radiant. “I can’t believe we’re going to have a proper Christmas dinner! Oh, I need to make a pudding…”

Meg let out a deep, suffering sigh. But she didn’t back down from her decision.

Castiel was going to suggest that they also invited Sheriff Mills and maybe Dean and his family, but he remembered right on time that Claire wasn’t speaking to either Alexis or Ben.

“I don’t care,” Claire said when he commented to her the mistake he was about to make. “Invite them if you want. It’s whatever.”

“Perhaps it’s not the best idea,” Castiel said, speaking softly. “Meg wants to have a more intimate… familiar thing, you know?”

“Okay, whatever,” Claire replied, with her nose still in her books, not even raising her eyes to meet his.

“Good,” Castiel said, even though he wasn’t entirely sure she had heard a word he’d said. “I’m glad we’d agreed on that.”

He was about to leave her alone to do something else when Claire called him:

“Hey, Cas… does that mean that we’re part of the family now? As in, are you going to marry Meg or something?”

“I would really appreciate it if you didn’t ask such a thing, please,” Castiel said, trying to sound dignified. The fact his face was burning red probably didn’t help.

“I’m just saying,” Claire replied, with a shrug. “You said you dated to find someone to marry, so…”

“We’ve only been together three months, Claire,” Castiel pointed out. “It’s too soon to talk about those things and you shouldn’t be talking about my relationship anyway.”

“Alright.” Claire shrugged and turned back to her book with a little smirk. Castiel was fully aware she was only teasing him, but if it made her forget about her own recent love disappointment, he was willing to let it pass.

Besides, he didn’t even think about those things. It wasn’t like he spent at the very least two days wondering what would be an appropriate gif for her. He didn’t want to give her anything too expensive in case she didn’t buy anything back for him, but at the same time, it just felt wrong to give her nothing. When he brought it up, she shrugged and continued saddling _Morningstar_ as if it was the least important thing.

“Just get me whatever, Cas. I really don’t care.”

“Are you sure?” Castiel said, nervously pulling the helm of his jacket. “Perhaps we can establish a price range or…”

“I already got you something.”

That took him completely by surprise. Just by how indifferent she was being about the entire thing, he really thought… but what had she got him? What kind of present…? And what did she expect him to get her in turn? Because clearly…

Meg’s fingers wrapped against his wrist and she pulled him closer. She stood on the tip of her toes and left a kiss at the edge of his lips. Then he turned around and continued preparing the colt as if there had been no interruption at all. Castiel blinked a couple of times.

“What was that for?”

“You were spiraling. Thinking too much,” Meg explained. “Cas, it’s really fine. Just get me a scarf or some gloves or something like that. It doesn’t even have to be anything fancy. You can get the exact same thing for Andrea.”

And that was how Castiel found himself in the only boutique in town the following Saturday morning. It was packed to the brim with Christmas shoppers, most of them women. He saw Ellen and Jo from the Roadhouse and Jody Mills with another officer she introduced as Donna Hanscum. He had to stop to make small talk with them and of course, Jody asked about Claire.

“Alexis says she hasn’t talked to her since the dance. She says they didn’t fight or anything, but Claire’s not answering her calls. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Well… you know how teenage girls are. There was probably some… misunderstanding between them,” Castiel said, trying to make it sound light. “It’s better to let them figure it out.”

“I guess you’re right,” Jody admitted with a sigh after a pause.

“So, Novak, who are you buying for?” Donna asked. She was a chubby and cheerful blonde woman, all smiles and kindness. Castiel couldn’t imagine her stopping any criminals, but he knew people sometimes were surprising. “Your niece?”

“I thought Claire was more of the bookish type,” Jody pointed out.

“She is. I’m here for… Andrea,” Castiel said, quickly. “Yes, she’s very kind to me and Claire, so I thought I’d get her a little something.”

“Oh. That’s really nice of you.”

“And perhaps also something for Miss Masters,” Castiel added quickly. “You know… since I’m here.”

“Of course, yes,” the two women muttered. But the looks they gave him were strange and really suspicious.

They still help him choose. He ended up buying a pair of small, cheap earrings for Andrea (pretty, but the kind she wouldn’t lament losing if she ever did) and a violet scarf for Meg. He also bought a hat for Benny and an ugly black Christmas sweater for Claire with a snowflake and the inscription “Winter is Coming” in it. He was fairly certain that was a phrase from one of her books. He thanked Jody and Donna for their suggestions, they invited him for the Christmas’ potluck and caroling. He promised to keep it in mind and headed back to the ranch.

Three days later, he found Benny in the stables. He took one look at him and burst into laughter.

“What?” Castiel asked, very confused by that reaction. “Do I have toothpaste in my face?”

Benny laughed even harder and in fact, it took him an entire minute to calm down before he explained the joke to Castiel.

“People in town are saying you have an affair with… get this, that you’re having an affair with my wife!”

He hugged his sides and continued laughing like it was the most hilarious joke he had heard in his entire life. Castiel cracked a smile. It was pretty ridiculous indeed.

“Oh, brotha’, I was gonna act all mad at you and threaten you to leave her alone,” Benny confessed, wiping the tears from his eyes. “But I just can’t. It’ too much.”

“Well, I’m… glad you don’t have a problem with that,” Castiel said and Benny began laughing breathlessly again. “I have no idea where people got that impression, though.”

“You bought her a Christmas present.”

“I bought Christmas presents for everybody.”

“Yeah, but obviously that was an excuse to buy something special for Andrea,” Benny said. “So you could continue your affair with her right underneath my nose.”

“I still don’t understand,” Castiel insisted. “Wouldn’t it be more logical to assume that I would be having an affair with Meg? Since we were both single at the time of meeting and… you know, that’s actually what’s going on.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Benny admitted. “People think Meg is incapable of love.”

That was a pretty unfair assumption. If only they had met Meg a little more, if they could have seen the way she was with her horses, if only they could talk to her and get to know her the way he did.

“Absolutely fucking not.”

Claire giggled and Castiel sighed. He had already discovered it was completely useless to ask Meg to please not swear in front of Claire, but still he really wished she restrained herself only a little bit. He guessed that was the price he had to pay for them being invited to have dinner at the main house every night now.

“It seems like a good time to bond with the townspeople,” Castiel said. “They’re your neighbors.”

“Cas, we’re the only house in miles,” Meg pointed out. “We don’t have neighbors. At all. And I’m not going to some boring potluck just because you think it’ll make me look nicer.”

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Andrea intervened. “I will bake brownies.”

“Awesome. Pot brownies,” Claire said. “You know, because they’re for the potluck.”

“That’s a great name!” Andrea said enthusiastically. “I’m going to use that.”

Benny grabbed her hand. “No, chére, no…”

“You have to let people be enthusiastic about your presence here,” Castiel continued. “How do you think Crowley earned so much support for his construction project? Because he went to these things, he talked to people. They got used to seeing him. You? They don’t know you and they don’t trust you.”

“I don’t care. I don’t need them to know me or trust me. I just need to win enough races to pay off the mortgage and I don’t need any neighbor for that,” Meg replied, stubbornly.

Castiel knew right away there would be no way to convince her to go, so he dropped it.

“Fine. But we’re still going.”

“Yeah,” Claire giggled, but her smile vanished right away. “No, wait, who’s we?”

“You’re going as punishment for making a drug-related joke. I don’t want to hear it,” Castiel determined. Claire grumpily swallowed her protests. “Benny, Andrea?”

“Sure, chief.”

“I do love to have an opportunity to bake,” Andrea added.

Meg stared at them with her mouth open, indignant.

“You are all a bunch of traitors,” she accused them. “You’re going to leave me alone on Christmas? Come on, guys.”

“Only for a few hours,” Castiel said. “You can stay here. All alone. With the snow falling. Who knows if we’ll be able to return in time?”

“That’s a depressing thought,” Claire pointed out.

Meg pursed her lips. It was obvious she thought it too.

“Fine,” she groaned. “But I draw the line at caroling.”

 

* * *

 

The church’s patio was so packed it was easy to imagine every single person on Northeast Haven was there that night, squeezing around the big Christmas tree that bathed everything with its golden, red and green lights. The Christmas service had finished and now Pastor Jim, a tall man with white beard and hair, was shaking hands with everybody and thanking them for coming to the potluck. Jody Mills and Donna Hanscum were selling raffle tickets and Donna seemed to be particularly insistent about it (“Come on, sir, it’s just five dollars! You’ll be contributing to a good cause!”). Dean and Lisa were standing next to a very tall man and a petite blonde woman Castiel didn’t recognize, having a very lively conversation. In fact, there seemed to be a general good feeling of community and laughter spreading all around, as they all stood under the snowflakes spiraling down, with their noses red from the cold and their hands inside their jackets to keep some warmth.

There still was some stirring and heads turning in their direction when they arrived, and for a second or two, there was some curious whispers. Meg kept her head up, but Castiel could tell she was uncomfortable, as they all moved towards the table where they had left the food so Andrea could find a place for her brownies.

“Everybody’s staring,” Claire pointed out, grimacing.

Castiel was going to suggest they should meddle with the crowd then so they could draw less attention to themselves, but he didn’t have to: Nora approached them with Tammy in her arms. The girl was so covered in jackets, gloves and a little hat she looked more like a bundle of clothes. The only thing visible were her shiny eyes and her red, chubby cheeks. Upon seeing Castiel, she immediately stretched her short arms towards him and started struggling to escape her mother’s grip.

“I’m so glad you could come!” Nora said. She left the baby in Castiel’s arm without a second hesitation and stepped closer to kiss Meg on the cheek. “I didn’t think you would make it.”

“Well, you know… wouldn’t have missed it,” Meg said, obviously a little taken aback by Nora’s enthusiastic greeting. “And hey, we came in two cars, so we can totally give you a ride to the ranch for dinner later.”

“That would really be helpful. My car’s not starting. It happens, sometimes, with the cold…”

They continued their chit-chat about that very inconsequential things long enough for people to stop paying attention. Castiel noticed some glances still thrown at them, but he was too busy trying to get Tammy to stop reaching for his scarf and pulling from it. The toddler had apparently decided that was a very funny game, because she continued with her endeavors over and over.

“You’re not very good with kids, are you?” Claire asked, mockingly.

“I just need her to stay still,” Castiel said, trying to signal to Nora to take back her child, but it wasn’t working. Pastor Jim had joined Nora and Meg’s chat and they were pointedly ignoring him. Meg seemed a little inhibited to be talking to the priest, but she still didn’t look like she was about to run away screaming.

Claire did run away a second later. She looked at something horrified, muttered about going to help Andrea with the brownies and fled as if she was being chased by the Devil himself. A second later, the cause of her uncomfortableness became clear: Dean, Lisa and Benny, along with their two visitors, approached Castiel to greet him.

“Hey, how is everything?” Lisa asked, with a smile.

“Let me introduce you: this is my little brother Sam and his wife, Jess.”

Sam was so tall it was almost funny that he was the “little” brother and Jess had a very charming smile that became wider when she saw Tammy.

“Oh, she’s so cute! Is she yours?”

“No, she’s…” Castiel started saying, but his voice trailed off when he realized he couldn’t easily explain what Tammy was to him. She was Meg’s niece, that was true, but as far as all these people knew, he was only Meg’s employee. So there was no conceivable reason for him to be carrying that baby and he couldn’t think of a lie fast enough. He was about to throw a desperate glance in Nora and Meg’s direction when Ben intervened:

“Hey, Mr. N, did Claire come with you?”

“Yes, she’s… around,” Castiel said, because that was also a very awkward topic of conversation. Claire didn’t want to talk to Ben, she had told him as much, but unless he came up with a reason to keep the two apart, he wouldn’t be able to save her from that encounter. “She’s… probably busy with the food.”

“Oh, okay,” Ben said. He looked a little disappointed that Castiel wouldn’t point him on Claire’s direction, but Castiel tried to stop thinking about that as he turned to Sam and Jess.

“So how are you enjoying Northeast Haven?”

“It’s such a lovely town!”

They talked wonders about it and how much they enjoyed coming to visit Dean and Lisa. Jess mentioned she would move there in a second if Sam’s job at the law firm didn’t keep them tied up half a country away. Castiel talked a little about the horses and the good racing season they were having until Nora finally joined them and took the baby off his hands.

“We should gather around. The caroling’s about to start!”

Castiel raised an eyebrow at Meg, who very pointedly decided not to look at him.

“The priest ambushed me,” she complained as Donna passed around the electric candles (because apparently, there had been an incident with the actual candles a few years back that no one had been too keen on repeating). “He started talking about my dad and how he was so glad to see me return to the flock…”

“You don’t have to justify it to me,” Castiel said, but he couldn’t bit back the smile at just how annoyed she seemed to be about it all.

“Hey,” Claire muttered, standing by his side and holding a blue candle. “Tell me we’re leaving after this. The place is only so big and I already had to say hi to Krissy.”

“We’re going right after this. My face hurts from smiling.”

“You two need some socializing,” Castiel complained, but he figured it must have been greatly diminished by the fact he felt so cheerful. He was thankful to have the two of them there, his impossibly stubborn and grumpy women, he was thankful to have a friends and a community to share that moment with them. He was happy that after months of uncertainty, worrying and fighting, they had found some semblance of peace and understanding.

They gathered around the tree and intonated _Holy Night_ along with all their neighbors. Their voices rose in the cold air, slow and solemn. Castiel lowered his hand to grab Meg’s. He fully expected her to give him a quick squeeze and let go of him, but she held it all the way until the song was done and that too, filled him with a sense of optimism.

Things weren’t completely alright right now, but they were starting to look up.


	27. Demands

Claire caught a cold after Christmas and she really hoped it would extend past New Year, but she had no luck. Andrea made her a Greek tea that tasted so bad Claire was certain part of its effectiveness consisted on the patient’s willingness to get better just do they didn’t have to drink it anymore. Besides, since Castiel and Meg had come clean about their relationship, it was almost unbearable to work with them. They still fought, because of course they did, but they almost always ended up patching things up with a kiss. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t happy for her uncle (God knew if there was someone who needed to get laid, it was him), but she still didn’t feel comfortable with all the peace and cordiality that had settled in the ranch lately.

It felt like there was another shoe about to drop.

But in any case, Claire was almost happy that classes were starting again. She would have been a lot more if it wasn’t because that inevitably meant having to face her friends. Or former friends, she couldn’t even be sure anymore.

And wasn’t that fucked up?

She parked her car and stayed on the driver’s seat for a while, looking at herself in the rearview mirror. So far, she had been successful at not picking their calls and dodging them at the Christmas potluck, but she knew this was the end of the line. At some point, during that day, she would have to acknowledge their presence have a very painful conversation about the reason she had been avoiding them.

She wondered if she could stay in the car long enough that she would have to run to classes afterwards. If she was late to everywhere, then she wouldn’t have time to really talk. Also, she could totally hide away in the library during lunch break. Then she started wondering how mad Castiel would be with her if she simply skipped school entirely that day.

She was only prolonging the inevitable though. She was just gathering the courage to open her door and walk out when someone tapped on her window.

Ben gave her a wary smile and waved at her from outside.

So that was quick.

Claire grabbed her bag and got out of the car.

“Hi, Ben,” she muttered.

“Hi, Claire,” he replied. They stood there, staring at each other, as if they had nothing to say. The truth was, neither of them seemed to have any idea of how to continue that conversation. After a few seconds, Ben swallowed hard and said: “So, uh…”

“We’re late for classes.”

Claire knew she was being a coward about the entire thing as she turned around and fled, but honestly, could anyone have blamed her for it?

“Wait!” Ben ran after her and almost blocked her steps. “We need to talk.”

“Do we?” Claire grimaced.

“Yes. You’ve been ignoring us all winter break,” Ben pointed out. “At the potluck, too. Alexis tried to say hi to you, but you just walked away.”

“Are you sure? That might have been just your imagination. I did say I was going to be busy reading. How about we go to classes? Aren’t you just so eager to learn?”

Ben looked at her with a raised eyebrow, obviously not buying her bullshit for one second. Claire let out a deep sigh.

“Okay, yeah. I was avoiding you,” she confessed.

“Why?” Ben asked. He looked genuinely hurt, and that made it all the more difficult. “Is it because of what happened at the Winter Dance?”

Claire didn’t even try to deny she’d seen them kissing underneath the mistletoe. She changed the weight of her body from one foot to the other and avoided looking at Ben directly in the eye.

“It was, wasn’t it?” Ben cringed and hid his eyes in his hand for a moment. “Dammit.”

“Look, it’s not your fault…”

“Yes, it is!” he said. “I kissed Alexis and I totally blew my chance with you.”

Claire blinked at him, dumbfounded.

“What?”

“I don’t know why I did that,” Ben continued. “Alexis said you weren’t interested in me so I figured, what the hell, you know? But then you saw us and you realized you had feelings for me and that’s why you’ve been avoiding us, and now you’re mad and I totally blew it.”

“Ben, you didn’t blow anything,” Claire said. She was trying to do her best not to laugh at him for how completely he had misread the situation. He clearly was torn up about it and laughing wasn’t going to solve anything.

“I really wished you had said something about you having a crush on me sooner, ‘cause…”

“I don’t have a crush on you,” Claire interrupted him. “I never did.”

Ben stopped talking for a second, squinting his eyes behind his glasses almost as if he was trying to catch her in a lie.

“Look, I know you’re trying to make this easier, but…”

“I can’t have a crush on you because I’m a lesbian.”

That wasn’t how she was planning to come out to her friend and obviously that wasn’t a thing Ben thought he would hear. He opened his mouth and closed it again, as if he was incapable of processing the words that Claire had said.

“What?” he asked in the end, as if he needed more clarification.

“I’m a lesbian,” Claire repeated. “As in, I like girls. I only get crushes on other girls. I want to marry a girl one day. ScarJo is my ideal date. Are you catching my drift?”

Ben rose a finger, almost as if he wanted to protest that notion.

“Have you… always been a lesbian?”

“I mean… I guess.” Claire shrugged. She had no clue where that line of interrogation was going.

Ben stepped aside, rubbed his face and then stood in front of her again. It was almost as if he was completely readjusting his entire world view to fir this brand new information.

“Okay, but maybe you’re a little bit bi?” he suggested. “Maybe you had a little bit of a crush on me?”

Claire tilted her head at him.

“I think you just turned me gayer by saying that. I was maybe a four on the scale. That comment alone just shot me all the way up to six.”

Ben obviously didn’t understand what she meant, but he didn’t ask her to clarify. He was still too shaken about the revelation.

“Okay,” he said in the end, nodding to himself. He seemed a little disappointed he had to renounce the notion that Claire ever had a crush on him. “But wait, if you’re a lesbian, then why were you upset…? Oh, fuck, you had a crush on Alexis.”

It had taken him a little bit, but Claire was glad they could get there without her having to say it out loud. Ben covered his mouth with his hand, as if he was suddenly very embarrassed.

“Claire, I’m so sorry. I had no idea…”

“Of course you had no idea,” Claire interrupted him. “Look, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, but it does! I was totally an asshole, I didn’t even think…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Claire said. “You two can make out whenever you want. I don’t care.”

She was lying, but what else could she do? Ben already looked guilty enough and this topic of conversation was turning even more awkward than she thought it would.

“Let’s just drop it, okay? We have classes.”

She turned around and strode away, ignoring Ben when he called after her.

She thought that would be the end of it. It had been horrible, but still, she was glad they had that talk and it was all over. Now she could just return to her friendless existence and forget about Ben and Alexis.

She should’ve known it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Ben approached her again at the end of the first period.

“Look, I don’t want you to think I have a problem with you,” he told her. “I know I didn’t react all that well, but that’s just because you caught me by surprise…”

“It’s okay, Ben,” Claire huffed.

“I mean, you do you. I totally accept you. Equal rights and all that.”

“That’s great, Ben.”

“So… we’re cool?”

“Yeah, we’re cool,” Claire said. “I gotta go.”

She had no idea what Ben was trying to do at that point, but whatever it was, it was even more cringe-inducing than when Castiel had tried to talk about it with her and she wished he’d stop.

“I respect you, you know? There’s like, so many people who have prejudices against gay people. You’re very brave,” he said at the end of the second period.

“I’m only out to like, three people,” Claire pointed out.

“Okay, yeah, but still. I think it’s very brave and I wanted to say I respect you.”

“I appreciate that, Ben. I got classes.”

Ben still didn’t let up, though.

“And you know, if you ever have any problems, you can come to me. I’m here for whatever you need.”

Claire slammed her locker door, out of patience.

“Look, Ben, it’s not a big deal,” she told him. “I don’t want to make it a big deal and neither should you. So just… drop it, will you?”

She walked away and decided to have lunch outside, even though it was cold as all fuck and all the sitting places were frosted. She froze her ass, but at least that was a strong enough statement that Ben did leave her alone.

Well, until the end of the day, that was. When Claire was going towards her car, she saw Ben and Alexis, awkwardly standing around. She cursed under her breath. What had he told her?

She could have ran, take another lap around the school or pretended she had forgotten something in the library until they got tired and went away, but they had already seen her. Alexis stood up very rigidly, looking at her, almost as if she was scared. Ben, however, seemed a lot more relaxed. He even smiled at Claire as she approached them.

“Hey, girl.”

“Hi,” Claire said, not sure what to say next.

Alexis took a deep breath and looked at her again.

“Hey, so… Ben told me you weren’t mad at us,” she started. “I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t know why I thought that.”

That took her by surprise. She had assumed Alexis would know by now the reason for why she had been avoiding them. She glanced in Ben’s direction, but he seemed to be overtly interested in cleaning his glasses with the hem of his jacket.

“Uh… yeah. I’m not mad at you,” Claire affirmed.

“That’s good!” Alexis said, a little bit too forcefully. “I mean… I’m glad to hear that.”

There followed a few seconds of very uncomfortable silence until Ben intervened:

“So… you guys wanna go to the city this weekend? We can watch a terrible horror movie and stuff ourselves full of popcorn.”

Both girls stared at him in surprise at the sudden invitation, but all he did was shrug. It was as if he wasn’t entirely concerned with whether they accepted their invitation or not.

“I guess we can do that,” Claire said, tentatively.

“Yes. I think I would like that,” Alexis agreed.

“Cool.”

And that was all. As if a fairy had waved her wand and dispelled all the unsaid uncomfortable things between them, as if there was nothing left for them to discuss or no secrets that kept them apart. Sheriff Mills honked at the parking lot’s entrance and Alexis took her leave, confirming that they would text each other to conform their plans.

Claire was left with the strange sensation that it had all been too easy. It was odd, as if an arrow had flow right over her head, barely grazing her but ultimately leaving her unharmed. She slowly turned towards Ben.

“You didn’t tell her,” she pointed out.

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“I figured if you hadn’t told her, it was because you didn’t want her to know,” Ben explained. “You can tell her when you’re ready.”

Claire was also baffled by that. She knew Ben was a good person, but she wasn’t quite expecting that level of… tact from him.

“Thank you.”

Ben shrugged and paused for a moment, as if he wanted to tell her something else, but he wasn’t quite sure how to.

“Things are weird between her and me too, you know?” he confessed. “It’s like… we kissed that one time, but we haven’t gone on a date and I’m not sure if that meant anything or not. I sort of didn’t want to ask her out until we’ve sorted things out with you, but I don’t know if she will accept even now.”

“Why are you telling me that?” Claire asked, frowning.

“I’m just letting you know it’s not like Alexis and I are dating or anything,” Ben explained.

Claire realized exactly the reason he was saying all those things and she almost felt like laughing out loud.

“Well, it doesn’t matter even if you are,” she said, shaking her head and leaning on the car next to Ben. “Alexis doesn’t like me that way and I doubt she ever will. And that’s… that’s fine, you know? It’s not like she’s the only girl in the world.”

“Yeah,” Ben chuckled.

They stayed were they were for a while. Claire had to drive home and that would take a while because the roads were slippery, but she was in no rush to leave Ben’s side. Not that she had found out now that they truly could be friends, that she could truly trust him without fear of repercussion or rejection. That was a rare thing. She might have lost her crush, but she had won something far more valuable: a true friend.

She bumped her shoulder against Ben’s arm.

“So you had a crush on me, huh? That’s embarrassing.”

“Shut up,” Ben replied, but his cheeks turned red as he looked away.

“No, I’m going to make fun of you for this forever,” Claire replied, with the widest smile she could muster.

“You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Not as bad as having a crush on your lesbian friend.”

“Oh, my God!”

Claire laughed in his face and Ben called her a bitch. It was a good time.

 

* * *

 

Castiel stopped the clock with a grin of satisfaction. _Morningstar_ had improved his time by two seconds every lap, which didn’t seem like a lot, but when they had lost the first place for a fraction of that during the last race, it was a great improvement. Meg jumped down and grinned with satisfaction when she saw the numbers.

“I think we’re making some progress, Clarence.”

“We definitely are. And I still don’t know who Clarence is. Uh… Meg?”

Meg hummed against his neck, not really answering to his question. She had slid a hand inside his jacket to hug him closer and was nuzzling him ever so delicately it was too hard to resist. He put a hand around her waist and pulled her closer, pleasantly surprised. Meg usually wasn’t the one who initiated physical contact, but whenever she did, he wasn’t about to complain about it.

“How long it’s been since we last fucked?” she asked, with her lips still against his skin. Her breath sent shivers down his spine.

“Since the Winter Formal, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Which means we haven’t fucked since last year,” Meg pointed out with a chuckle. She moved her face away to show him a wicked smile. “Maybe you can stay a little longer after dinner tonight.”

Castiel left a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“I want to. Believe me, I do. So much,” he sighed. “But…”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Claire.” Meg’s irritation was transparent in her voice, even though she was still smiling. “If you’re trying to protect her precious innocence, I think you’re a bit misguided. She’s seventeen, Cas. She definitely knows what sex is.”

“It’s not so much her innocence as my own dignity that I’m trying to protect,” Castiel explained. He felt the blood climbed up his neck. “As you said, she’s seventeen. She’s not above… lowbrow humor at my expense.”

Meg laughed a little and the tension released from her shoulders. She looked a lot happier those days than she had been in months. Castiel felt it had something to do with Nora and Tammy’s visits, along with the fact she hadn’t mentioned the bank or the mortgage in a while. Or perhaps because their next race was still so far away it was a nebulous concept. He had no doubt she would begin feeling more and more nervous as the date approached.

After all, if they won, they would have a place in the Kentucky Derby practically guaranteed. And that could only mean a bigger influx of money, people requesting Morningstar to sire some foals and a perhaps even sponsors, though Meg didn’t count on the latter given the ranch’s reputation. Castiel said there was nothing wrong with keeping a positive outlook, so he did that.

He also tried not to think too far ahead into the future. After all, Claire would be graduating in a few months and with the way her grades had picked up again despite last year’s flux, it was very likely she would be accepted in a good college. They had the money her parents had saved up for her, of course, so her student loans shouldn’t be too crushing. But that wasn’t what Castiel was really thinking about.

He tangled his fingers in Meg’s hair and leaned down to kiss her. She opened her mouth for him and leaned back in the track’s fence, her hand squeezing his tighter.

In Castiel’s mind, his future once Claire went to college included Meg. It included waking up to her and working with the horses, maybe finding or training a new jockey if she chose to retire soon. It included staying in Northeast Haven and watching Morningstar return to its former glory.

The only setback to that entire view is that he wasn’t sure Meg shared it.

Sure, she kissed him more often and had no problem with displaying their closeness around the house, but they never talked about the future. They never talked about whether their terms of agreement had changed and if they were on a more serious terrain now. And Castiel wasn’t sure how to bring it up, but when they broke apart, he decided he was going to try:

“Well, we could… go to the city.”

“What for?”

“We could have dinner at a nice restaurant,” he continued explaining. “Find ourselves a room somewhere discreet…”

“Why do that when I can fuck in my own house?” Meg replied. She seemed infinitely amused at what Castiel was suggesting.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Castiel explained. He placed a hand on Meg’s cheek and stroke her skin with his thumb. She closed her eyes and leaned into his warm with a sigh of content. “I meant we could go out, you and me. On a proper date.”

Meg opened her eyes abruptly.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

All of the sudden, Meg’s grip around his hand wasn’t as tight as before.

“You’re not serious,” she said, stepping back.

“Why not?” Castiel asked, both surprised and a little disappointed at her reaction. “What’s wrong with it?”

Meg opened her mouth, perhaps to explain it to him, perhaps to point out she had never agreed to anything different to what they were doing before, but they were interrupted when Benny appeared around the corner of the house.

“Uh… sorry,” he said, sensing the sudden tension between the two. “Just… thought you should know: Tom’s here and he wants to talk to you.”

“What?” Meg asked.

They hadn’t heard him approach, perhaps too lost in the training or in their own petting. But it was true: Tom’s obnoxious red car was parked in front of the house. Meg twisted her mouth, clearly unhappy about this development.

“Cas, take _Morningstar_ to the stable,” she instructed him. “Benny, tell Andrea to make some coffee…”

“She already did,” Benny replied. “He didn’t look very happy, Meg.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Meg replied, pulling from her jacket and carding her fingers through her hair as if to force it to its proper place. “I guess we’ll have to see what the hell he wants.”

She headed for the house with her chin up and her shoulders squared. Castiel had the impression he was seeing a boxer that march into the ring to fight a formidable opponent.

He did as he was instructed, but as he unsaddled _Morningstar_ , he realized his mind went to her and what was going on inside the house over and over again. He wanted to see Tom Masters face to face, ask him why the hell he thought he had any right to show up there and demand anything, when it had been Meg and him running the entire thing for months. He had never seen the man, but he was already furious with him.

And his distraction must have been quite clear, because Benny took the brush he had been lazily holding on for an entire minute from his hand.

“Go, chief,” he told him, making a gesture towards the door. “She’s gonna need some backup.”

“Thank you,” Castiel muttered, relieved and almost ran from the stables. He went in the house through the back door stopped in the kitchen to catch his breath and compose himself a little and finally stepped into the living room.

He shouldn’t have bothered. Apparently, he wasn’t interrupting anything, except for the Masters siblings staring at each other with hostility over their cups of coffee.

Tom was standing next to the chimney, his eyes fixed on Meg, who was in the couch with her legs firmly crossed. It was easy to see the family resemblance at once: they both had the same dark hair and brown eyes, though Tom’s were harsher and his features sharper. It didn’t help that he had an unkempt scruff growing on his necks and cheeks and that the burrow between his eyebrows was so deep it looked like he had never relax it. He grabbed unto his cup with excessive force, as if he was trying to contain his rage over something.

Castiel cleared his throat and both their stares came to rest on him. Meg’s softened a little, but Tom kept looking at him like he was just another thing on the long list of annoyances that had lead him to the ranch there.

“Ah, yes, Cas, come in. I don’t think you had the pleasure to meet my brother the last time he was here,” Meg commented calmly.

“No. He seemed to be in a hurry back then,” Castiel replied, also feigning obliviousness. He stalked closer and extended his hand at Tom Masters. “Nice to meet you, I am Castiel Novak.”

Tom stared at Castiel’s hands as if he didn’t know what he expected him to do, but in the end, he grabbed and shook it. His grip was so tight Castiel swore he could feel his bones creaking a little bit.

“So you’re the new trainer,” Tom said. His voice was also deep and raspy.

“I am.”

“I have to congratulate you, then. You did the impossible by breaking that horse.”

“It only took a little bit of patience,” Castiel replied, feigning humility.

As soon as Tom let go of him, Castiel moved to stand next to the couch with Meg. If they were having a discussion, he wanted to signal just where his loyalties were.

However, that proved to be completely unnecessary. Tom left his cup next to the pictures on the shelf and sank his hands on his pockets.

“Just think about what I told you, little sister,” he said. “I wouldn’t want this to get too ugly.”

“It won’t,” Meg promised. She continued sitting very stiff and confident, but there was something in her voice that signaled an entirely different thing.

It wasn’t until Tom crossed the door and they heard the motor of his horrible car roaring away that she settled back in the couch and Castiel found out what it was: despair.

“Goddammit.”

“What did he want?” Castiel asked.

Meg stood up and started pacing the floor as if she hadn’t heard the question at all. She placed her thumb between her lips and started nibbling at the delicate skin around her nail.

“Meg,” Castiel called her again. “What did he want?”

“What do you think?” she snapped at him. “The only thing he ever comes here for: money!”

She stopped her frantic pacing, only to tap her arm with her fingers. Castiel had never seen her look more like a caged animal.

“I thought he’d agreed to give you some time.”

“Well, time is up,” Meg replied. “And it’s my fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“I gave Nora a means to contact him,” Meg explained. “I thought it would give him even more reason to stay away, but that backfired. She’s asking for child support and he claims he doesn’t have a penny outside of what he can get from here. So that’s the last time I’m nice to anybody.”

The last sentence hurt Castiel for reasons he couldn’t understand. He had been trying so hard to get Meg out of her shell and the progress he had done was so painfully slow…

“Meg, you don’t mean that,” he said, stepping around the couch and carefully approaching her. He stretched his hands towards her and waited for her to come to him. Meg let out a bitter laughter and hid her face on his shoulder for a moment.

“It changes nothing. I used up almost all the money paying Dr. Richardson and the bank. I barely have enough left to pay you and the rest. He threatened the next time he shows up here it would be with his lawyer and if he starts a legal shitstorm, then I’m done for.”

Castiel waited. There were a couple of ways that he could think off that they could get out of that ditch, but he waited for her to decide on their next step.

Meg finally stepped backwards, apparently having collected himself a little.

“We need to win a race,” she decided.

“What race?” Castiel asked, growing a little anxious at her decision. It wasn’t a bad idea and normally he would be with her, but… “We passed up the chance to run at Jerome, and all the others are too far away. We would lose money just transporting _Morningstar_ to them…”

“Withers is in two weeks,” Meg interrupted him. “The purse isn’t big, but it’s enough to keep Tom off my back until we have a bigger fish to fry.”

“But what if we lose?”

“We won’t lose. We can’t lose,” Meg replied. Castiel wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself. “We have the best horse we can hope for and _Morningstar_ ’s in great shape…”

“Meg,” Castiel said, placing his hands on her shoulders so she would look at him. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t try that. We should. But I also need you to consider that perhaps we should have a backup plan.”

“What kind of plan?” she asked. She analyzed his face for a moment and as the second passed, Castiel saw what he meant dawning on her. She opened her eyes wide, horrified as if he was suggesting something horrible. “No.”

“I thought that was your intention all along…”

“Circumstances have changed, Castiel,” she replied.

“I know,” he said, cringing. “Believe me, I wouldn’t want that either. But…”

“I can’t just get rid of him!” she replied. “Say we manage to survive this season with _Morningstar_. What happens next year? The filly won’t be ready to run yet and we only have two broodmares left. If I sell him, I might as well be selling the ranch.”

Castiel let out a sigh. He also wasn’t sure that was the best idea. It was a short term solution and besides…

“Hey,” Claire greeted them, stalking into the house with _Bilbo_ following her closely. “Couldn’t find you at the cabin.”

“Yes.” Castiel cleared his throat and tried to seem like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. “We were just… discussing the details of the next race.”

“Thought you guys weren’t racing until March,” Claire pointed out, but she dropped the topic quickly, as she clearly had something else in mind: “Can I take _Leggers_ out for a ride? I know it’s late, so we’ll make it short.”

“Yes, of course,” Meg agreed. “Don’t forget to groom him afterwards.”

“You got it, boss.”

She turned away with Bilbo at her heels and left the house humming to himself. Castiel almost felt like his heart was breaking.

They had to win the race. How were they going to tell Claire they’d have to sell her favorite horse otherwise?


	28. Setback

They day before they left for Withers, Castiel made one last attempt to earn them some time. In the back of his mind, he knew there was a possibility he would fail, but he never truly imagined he would fail so spectacularly.

But he had to try regardless.

He parked his car in front of the Gas ‘N’ Sip and mentally rehearsed all the things he was planning on saying. It was more like a desperate plea than anything else, but perhaps it would take some pressure off their shoulders.

Nora was restocking the shelves when he came in. She saw spotted him immediately and smiled wide.

“Cas! Nice to see you. I’ll be with you in a second…”

“Actually, I’m here to talk to you,” Castiel clarified quickly. “It’s… important.”

Nora blinked at him, confused, but she let the cashier know she was taking a five minutes break and followed Castiel outside.

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to entertain you,” Castiel said, pulling from the helm of his shirt. He explained to her the situation the best he could.

As he talked, Nora’s expression went from disconcerted to cautious to downright angry. She crossed her arms over her chest and clenched her jaw.

“Well, I don’t know what you expect me to do about it,” she said when Castiel finished. Her expression was unusually cold and hostile.

Castiel was a little taken aback by the forcefulness of her reply. For a second or two, he just looked at her, unable to muster a response.

“It’s… Nora, I get it’s frustrating…” he started.

“I’m more than frustrated, Castiel,” she interrupted him. “Did Meg send you to tell me about this?”

“No, she doesn’t even know I’m here,” Castiel answered truthfully, but he wasn’t sure she believed that.

“Look, she was really kind to me, inviting me to spend Christmas at the ranch with you and all. But I need the money. I’m working two jobs, I barely see my daughter…”

“I understand all of that, Nora…”

“I don’t think you do,” she interrupted him. “Did you know Tom promised to leave his wife and marry me? You probably think I was stupid for believing him and maybe I was. But the minute he found out I was pregnant, he stopped answering my calls. Hell, he even left for the city so I couldn’t track him down, like a damn coward.”

Castiel cringed. He was starting to realize that Nora was absolutely right to be angry and she wasn’t going to let go of that any time soon.

“Meg would help you,” he said. “I’m sure she would, but the ranch isn’t in great shape right now. We just need more time…”

“I’m out of time and I’m out patience,” Nora replied, curtly. “I’m sorry you got caught in all of this.”

And with that, she turned away and stalked back into the store.

 

* * *

 

Castiel’s gut usually didn’t bother him. He had heard of people just “knowing” things from listening to their gut, knowing when something was wrong or was about to go wrong. He had never understood that feeling, not even when bad things had actually happened, like Jimmy and Amelia’s accident or that terrible afternoon he left Claire alone in the apartment for fifteen minutes too long. He wasn’t a superstitious man and in the rare occasion he had a bad feeling about something, he did his best to ignore it and continue with his job as if nothing out of the ordinary was occurring.

The Saturday they ran the Withers Stakes, he wished he had listened to his gut. Because he woke up with his gut in a state of complete disarray, to the point that he had felt dizzy upon leaving the bed. He attributed to having finished Meg’s barely touched dinner for her and assured her there was nothing to worry about.

“We can buy some medicine on the way to the track,” he told her. “I’m certain it’ll go away soon.”

Meg glanced at him like she wasn’t so sure about it, but in the end, she agreed. They didn’t count on the traffic being so heavy, so by the time they arrived to the track, they were late for the first time since Castiel had started working with Meg. That didn’t help at all with her nerves. When he dropped the reins before he put them on _Morningstar_ because his hands were shaking, Meg sent him to the bench.

“Just go sit, okay? I got this. It’ll be fine.”

He should have noticed she was, in fact, not fine at all, but he was so nauseous and tired by then that the only thing he could feel at the possibility of sitting was utmost relief. That lasted for about two seconds, until the scent of horse dung, earth and the sausage one of the other trainers was eating reached his nostrils, upsetting his stomach even further. He hanged unto himself, muttering that it would be over soon and that he just needed to resist for Meg.

He might as well have been watching the race from their hotel room, because he couldn’t even get up to cheer for her. By the time the gates opened and the horses bolted past them with a din like thunder, he barely could keep his eyes open. His shirt was soaked with sweat and it sounded like the announcer’s voice was booming inside of his skull:

“And there goes _Lady Rowena_ , quickly taking the lead, but _Morningstar_ is right behind her. _Mad Sweeney_ is chasing both of these ladies and he leaves _Lady Rowena_ behind…”

The names of the horses and their positions near the finished line mixed up in his head irremediably. The only way he found out the race was over was when the crowd started cheering. He almost cried in relief, with the ability to care about what place they had come into momentarily suspended. All that mattered was that the race was over and they could go to the hotel and he could get some rest…

Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy. Nothing about that day was going to be easy.

“I’m telling you, she’s a cheater!” a man was screaming when Castiel managed (barely) to make his way to where the winners were. Through the haze of his sickness, he had managed to find out they had come in second. What he couldn’t understand why was that man was so angry. He stood in front of him, his dark skin almost glowing as he raised a finger to point at him. “They’re nothing but cheaters! I demand they’re disqualified!”

“How did we cheat?” Meg asked, and Castiel realized that she was standing next to him and grabbing him by the arm, because he would be falling on his ass otherwise. “And if we did cheat, don’t you think we would have come in first, Walker?”

The other trainer wasn’t going to let up that easily, of course. He sank his hand in the pocket of his jacket and extracted a little green and white cardboard box.

“Then explain this!” he demanded, waving the box in front of them as if it was irrefutable evidence. “They were in your box! You took this before the race to be lighter! That’s against the rules!”

“What the hell were you doing poking around in our box, Walker?” Meg asked, paling in indignation.

“Answer the question!” Walker insisted.

“We bought those because my trainer is sick,” Meg argued. “Castiel, tell them.”

Castiel opened his mouth, but instead of speaking, he bent over himself and barfed.

 

* * *

 

It was hours until he stop feeling like his skin had suddenly caught fire. When he opened his eyes, it was dark outside. There was a damp cloth over his forehead and his mouth felt dry and bitter.

Meg stirred in the armchair she had dragged next to the bed when she heard him move.

“Hey,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better, thank you,” he muttered.

“The doctor said it was one of those twenty four hours bugs,” Meg explained as she took the cloth from his forehead. “So you should be good as new tomorrow and we can drive home.”

Castiel stared at her, a little in disbelief. She had been taking care of him. Through his feverish state, he remembered her taking him back to the room, giving him water and calling a doctor, helping him get up to go vomit and making sure the covers and sheets didn’t suffocate him. And now she was chatting amicably from the bathroom as she washed the cloth again.

“I already sent _Morningstar_ back and called Sheriff Mills. She said there was no problem with Claire staying an extra day at her house.” She returned and gently placed the cloth on his face, patting him softly to clean up the sweat. “So you don’t have to worry about anything.”

As soon as she said it, of course, Castiel started worrying immediately. He caught her wrist and gently made her move it away.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. Meg blinked at him.

“For what?” she asked, as if she genuinely didn’t know what he meant by it.

“I’m afraid I might have distracted you with my illness,” Castiel continued. “And that was the reason we didn’t get first place. I know how nervous you get…”

Meg shook her head.

“Actually, for once, I wasn’t nervous at all while I was racing,” she told him. “I was thinking of you and how we needed to end up soon so you could get some rest. I got second place because the other horse was faster, that’s all.”

“Still…”

“Don’t worry about that, Clarence. It’s nothing we can solve now, unless we want to accuse the jockey of cheating like Walker did. Oh, I wish I took a picture of his face when you vomited all over his shoes.” She giggled.

Castiel smiled at her, but he couldn’t help the feeling she was beating around the bush.

“We didn’t win.”

“We’re still in the money,” she replied. “Granted, it wasn’t as much as we were aiming for…”

“Meg.”

She went quiet and her fake cheerfulness fell like the mask it was. She poured water on a glass and held it to his lips so he could take a sip from it.

“It’s not enough,” she admitted in a whisper after a while.

They both knew what that meant.

“We’ll find a way out of this,” he promised her.

“I’ll find a way out of this,” Meg replied, shaking her head. “The ranch is my responsibility, I have to make sure that Tom…”

“Do you really think I don’t care what happens?” Castiel asked. He was as surprised as her by the vehemence of his question. Meg slowly put the cloth down.

“You shouldn’t have to care,” she replied. “To you, it’s just a job. If it goes under, then you can just move on with…”

“I care what happens to it because you care,” Castiel said.

Meg placed the glass in the nightstand, avoiding his gaze before he could finish that thought. She always did that. Whenever he got anywhere close to letting her know how he really felt and how much she meant to him, she abruptly changed the topic or just walked away. It had been that way since he had suggested they had a date. That also was making him incredibly uncomfortable and he just wished Meg would tell him what he had done wrong so he could apologize for it and they could move on from it.

But their problems would have to wait.

“I’m going to have to sell the colt,” she said, lowering her voice.

The way she referred to him almost broke Castiel’s heart. Before, she had finally giving in and started calling him _Leggers_ like he and Claire did. Now that she was going to have to be parted from it, she was trying to keep her distance. It was understandable. But also terribly disappointing.

“Claire will be heartbroken.”

“You think I don’t know that?” she asked, turning her back on him as she stalked back to the bathroom. “I kicked up a storm when I was her age and dad tried to sell _Zeus_ ’ mother. Believe me, I know what she will go through.”

Castiel thought about pointing out that if she really didn’t think the ranch meant more to him and to Claire than “just a job”, then how was she so sure his niece would protest? But the ambient was already too tense without him asking stupid questions.

When Meg came out, she looked calmer, but she obviously was still shaken about the events of the race. She took off her shirt and her bra in such a swift and efficient manner that Castiel knew there was no way she was teasing him. She slid under the covers with her back turned to him and asked him to turn off the lights and wake her up if he needed anything.

Castiel took his sweet time to obey her and even in the dark, he spent a good amount of time staring at the ceiling, thinking.

“Meg?” he called out softly after a few seconds. For a moment, he thought she hadn’t heard her, but then she rolled over to look at him.

“Do you need to vomit again?”

“No, it’s just… I think I know someone who can take _Leggers_. And who Claire won’t protest taking him.”

Meg shot him a skeptic look, but out loud she said:

“I’m open to all suggestions at this point.”

 

* * *

 

Claire was playing ball with _Bilbo_ on the yard outside when she heard the car moving towards the garage. She was distracted by it, because that was odd. Before, the ranch didn’t receive any visits and now it was having another in less than three weeks. But when she turned to look at him, she realized she knew that blue Audi.

 _Bilbo_ came running and wagging his tail, placed the ball at her feet and run around, barking and waiting for her to throw it again.

“Not now, boy, down,” Claire told him. “We got visitors.”

 _Bilbo_ whimpered disappointed when he saw her walk away, but soon he realized there was another human in the ranch and he just needed to say hello. As soon as the Audi’s driver set a foot outside the garage, _Bilbo_ charged at her full speed and almost jumped her.

“Oh! Oh, hello,” she said.

Claire held _Bilbo_ back by his collar and smiled at the visitor.

“Hello, Daphne.”

Daphne Allen was a therapist and Castiel’s coworker when he still trained horses at the EAT center. And his ex-girlfriend. Claire didn’t know her that much despite that, but she always had the impression she was a very sweet woman. For example, now she was smiling and patting _Bilbo_ ’s head despite the dog almost tackling her.

“Hello. Good boy, get down. Hello, Claire,” she added, grinning at her. Her pretty aquamarine eyes were glimmering as usual. “You look good.”

“Thanks. Forgive my dog,” she added, pulling _Bilbo_ back. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“No? Your uncle invited me for the weekend.” She pointed at the duffle bag she had dropped at her feet.

That was even stranger. Claire was pretty sure he would have mentioned it to her, or at least to Meg, that his ex-girlfriend would be dropping by.

Almost as if on cue, Meg, Benny and Castiel appeared around the corner.

“Daphne!” Castiel exclaimed. He wrapped his arms around her to give her a quick hug. Daphne smiled even wider at him as he stepped backwards to introduce her: “This is Benny…”

“We met. He was kind enough to open the gate for me.”

Benny respectfully bowed his head at her.

“Let me help you with that, miss,” he said, picking up Daphne’s bag.

“And this is my new boss, Meg Masters,” Castiel continued the introductions.

“Dr. Allen,” Meg said, extending her hand at her. She was also smiling and being more pleasant that she strictly needed to be.

“Please, there’s no need to be so formal. You can call me Daphne.”

“Okay, Daphne. Would you like to come inside for some refreshment?”

“Thank you! You have a lovely house…”

Claire felt like she had missed a step while walking down the stairs or that she was the only actor in the play who hadn’t memorized her script. Why was Daphne there? Why was Meg being so nice? Something wasn’t adding up. As soon as the two women were out of earshot (probably exchanging compliments about each other’s hair, at that point in time), Claire caught her uncle’s arm.

“What’s going on here?” she asked him.

It took him one second before he could think of a lie, and it her a fraction of a second to figure out the next thing that came out of his mouth would be a lie.

“Daphne is just paying us a visit,” Castiel said, sheepishly. “Why do you assume there’s something else going on?”

“Right. Because your ex-girlfriend casually getting along with your actual girlfriend is the most common thing in the world,” Claire replied, rolling her eyes.

“Meg is not… it’s not like that…”

“Then what is like?” Claire continued pressing. “Is it like a weird threesome situation?”

“No, it’s not… how come your mind always goes to the gutter?” Castiel asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

“It’s a gift and a curse.” Claire shrugged.

Castiel didn’t seem impressed by her sense of humor.

“Your shoes are full of mud. Change them before you come in for dinner,” he said. He followed Meg and Daphne inside of the house.

It wasn’t until Claire was halfway towards the cabin to actually change her shoes (because she wasn’t an animal), that she realized her uncle had totally dodged the question.

 

* * *

 

The dinner was amicable enough, at least for the first part. Castiel was a little nervous about it because, as Claire had so kindly pointed out, it wasn’t usual for a former love interest and a new one to coincide. But Meg and Daphne seemed to hit it off well enough, talking about horses and the best way to groom them, their passion for them and when they started riding them. Castiel also found out that Meg could be incredibly charming and friendly when she wanted something. Which wasn’t odd, just… surprising. He’d assumed her approach to every new person she met was being an iron wall to prove she was the toughest of the two. But with Daphne, she was all smiles and happy anecdotes and hopes she would like the horses when she got to meet them the next day.

“I’m sure they are fantastic. I can’t wait to see them.”

It was at that point that Claire (who was a smart girl and Castiel didn’t know why he tried to hide things from her anymore) realized the real reason for Daphne’s visit.

“Wait… you’re here to buy a horse?” she asked.

“Actually, yes. Dear old _Beatriz_ is getting to old to carry children around,” Daphne explained. “She’s going to have to retire soon and we’re going to need someone to replace her. Ezekiel – he’s our new trainer – told me to look for a gentle horse, you know? We need them to be patient and have some good nature…”

Claire gulped down the entire content of her glass while Castiel watched her carefully. She was reaching the logical conclusion: that _Leggers_ fit that description and that he was definitely at risk of being sold.

“I have my doubts about these horses, though, if I can be frank,” Daphne continued. “They’re very expensive and they seem to have a bit of an aggressive streak…”

“They’re thoroughbreds,” Claire intervened. “They’re born to run.”

Castiel quickly exchanged a look with Meg. They hadn’t counted on Claire full on rebelling and trying to sabotage their plans.

Meg was a lot calmer than he was, though.

“Yes, that’s true. But they’re also very smart and they will understand what you want from them very fast.”

“Will they be able to work with the kind of people that come to our center, though?”

“I don’t see why not,” Meg said. “My grandpa used to say, a horse is ten percent its breed, ninety percent how you train it.”

“Did he?” Daphne asked. Castiel couldn’t blame her for her skepticism. That sounded like nothing ‘Lucifer’ Masters would say. “He must have known a lot about horses.”

“He was a legend,” Meg agreed. “Of course, I’m not surprised you hadn’t heard about it, since your job is only tangentially related to the horses.”

There followed three seconds of absolute and awkward silence. Benny and Andrea looked at each other and decided to continue eating as if they’d heard nothing. Claire, on her part, sat at the edge of the chair as if she was suddenly very interested about this topic. Castiel swallowed his drink in one gulp and tried to come up with a way to defuse the situation. He wasn’t fast enough.

Daphne’s smile was still kind, but incredibly tense as she spoke:

“You think I know nothing about them, is that it?”

“I think you’re a therapist, Dr. Allen,” Meg said, also courteous but really tense. “And while that is admirable, I don’t see how that translates into knowing how to care for and treat the animals.”

“I’m not entirely helpless around them if that is what you’re worried about,” Daphne replied.

“Oh, I don’t believe you are. Castiel speaks highly of you and the work you do,” Meg pointed out. “But just dismissing an entire breed of horses for what you don’t believe they can do makes you look a little disingenuous. If you don’t mind me saying it.”

“Does anybody want dessert?” Andrea asked, in a forcefully cheery tone that fooled exactly no one. “No?”

Nobody answered her. Daphne and Meg kept staring at each other with now open hostility.

“I’m sorry you have a problem with me, Miss Masters,” Daphne said.

“You’ll have to forgive me for it. I was just wondering, if you didn’t come here to acquire any horses, then what were your intentions in coming here at all.”

Meg seemed to have hit the nail on the head, because Daphne opened and closed her mouth several times, as if she had not expected anyone to address the topic directly. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and cleared her throat several times, as if she was at a loss for words.

“Castiel was kind enough to invite me,” she said, in the end.

“Yes,” Meg replied, coldly. “And he might have made a mistake with that. You’re welcome to spend the weekend, of course, but I hope you won’t mind if I call other people who might have a sincere interest in buying what I’m offering.”

“No,” Daphne said, still forcing out a smile. “Of course not.”

“Good.” Meg stood up so suddenly the chair scraped against the floor nosily. “Good night then. Benny can show you to your room later.”

She left without another word. Castiel’s first impulse was to go after her, but the silence in the table was deeper and more awkward than it had been in ages. Finally, Andrea started picking up the dishes without another word and Benny quickly stood up to help her.

“Well, that was awful,” Claire determined. “Guess you’re not selling anyone after all.”

“Claire, you should go back to the cabin.”

“But I want dessert,” she protested.

“Claire, please.”

Claire twisted her mouth in a way that made Castiel think that particular conversation was far from over, but she stood up nonetheless and dragged her feet towards the kitchen. Castiel guessed she was going to con Andrea into giving her dessert anyway. He looked up at Daphne.

“I am so sorry…” he began, but then he realized something completely out of the ordinary was going on: Daphne was covering her mouth with one hand, while her shoulders shook with uncontrollable laughter. “What’s funny? Why are you laughing?” Castiel asked, disconcerted and more than a little preoccupied.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Daphne breathed out between chuckles. “It’s just… she figured us rather quickly, didn’t she?”

Castiel was even more confused than he had been before. When Daphne stood up and moved to sit by his side in the chair Claire had just left, his confusion peaked.

“Figured out… what exactly?”

Daphne leaned over and squeezed his knee.

“Come on, Cas, you didn’t just call me to sell some horses you know won’t be good for the center,” she told him, her aquamarine eyes glimmering. “It’s okay. You might get in a little trouble, but I don’t think she’ll fire you…”

She leaned closer and Castiel almost jumped out of the chair. It must have been obvious how uncomfortable he was because her smile faltered a little.

“Wait… you didn’t call me for that?” she asked, frowning.

“No,” Castiel said.

His mind was racing through different emotions: confusion was still the main one, but also a little bit of understanding of why Daphne had been so antagonistic towards Meg. And finally, horror that she might have thought… he didn’t want her to think he had intentionally or not mislead her in some way.

Daphne was also beginning to grasp this situation wasn’t what she thought.

“Oh, you didn’t call me for…”

“We genuinely need to sell the horses, Daphne,” Castiel explained. “I recommended you to Meg because I know you and I know how you work…”

He stopped talking, because Daphne’s eyes seemed to have grown twice their size for how wide she was opening them. She covered her mouth with her hand at the same time her cheeks became red with embarrassment.

Castiel imagined he couldn’t have looked much better, because when Benny returned, he took one look at them and offered:

“If you need me to give you another minute…”

“No!” Daphne said, almost too quickly. She stood up so fast she almost knocked the chair back. “I just… I think I will tuck in early tonight.”

“Okay,” Castiel managed to say. “Do you want me to…?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Daphne added, already backing towards the door. “I’ll just… I know where my room is. Goodnight.”

And she almost ran out of the kitchen.

Castiel was left with the uncomfortable feeling he had screwed up majorly.

“You okay there, chief?” Benny asked.

“I’m… I’m not entirely sure,” Castiel admitted. “I think Daphne thought I invited her with… ulterior motives.”

“I wonder where she got that idea.” Benny chuckled but stopped when he noticed Castiel was still staring at him with complete and total disconcert. “Oh. You… you really don’t know?”

“Please explain it to me,” Castiel begged.

“What time of the year is it?”

“Mid February,” Castiel answer without thinking. It slowly dawned on him exactly what that meant. “It’s… Valentine’s Day.”

“This Sunday,” Benny reminded him. He was now looking at him with something akin to pity in his clear eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Castiel fell back on the chair and sank his face in his arms.


	29. Serious

Her uncle was in a bad mood the following morning. Claire knew this because he groaned when she wished him good morning and he didn’t even try to tell her that the hot coffee would burn a whole in her stomach. He just sat on his chair, staring at the wall with a blank expression and barely paying attention to anything Claire said.

“… and I’m thinking getting a tattoo in my lower back, like with an arrow pointing at my ass crack that read _‘Party in here’_ ,” she said, between gulps of coffee.

His only reaction was a half-hearted groan.

“Not on my dime.”

Claire put down her mug of coffee.

“Okay, what is wrong with you?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “Because it’s not that just your girlfriend and your ex suddenly don’t get along. I mean… were you really expecting any different?”

Castiel sighed and finally decided to look at her.

“It’s really none of your concern.”

“I mean, it wouldn’t have been, but you totally made it my concern, dude,” Claire replied, crooking an eyebrow. “Were you really going to sell my horse without telling me?”

And that was really the crux of the matter there. She really couldn’t give less of a fuck about Castiel’s love life and how he had messed it, but the fact he had tried blindsiding her…

“It’s not your horse,” he reminded her with a sigh.

“Well, it doesn’t matter.” Claire shrugged. “Because you fucked it up so bad now Daphne isn’t going to buy anything here.”

It come out a lot peppier than she intended, but it didn’t matter. She was taking a sadistic pleasure in this instant karma he was suffering for not talking to her beforehand and she didn’t care if she realized that.

Castiel ran his fingers through his hair, as he did when he was nervous, and leaned over on the table.

“Claire…”

“You don’t have to apologize, though, it’s fine,” Claire replied, grinning at him. “Do you want me to go check how the mood is in the stables?”

“I’d really rather you didn’t get involved.”

Claire finished her coffee in one long gulp.

“Well, that’s too bad, because I actually have to do my job there. You can join whenever you feel ready for it.”

She gave one last grin and happily skipped out of the house with _Bilbo_ barking and jumping behind her. He would probably get bored when he realized where they were going and start running around the open field until she was done and called him to go home. She would clean the dung and groom the horses and feed carrots to _Leggers_ and it would be like any other Saturday in Morningstar, at least for her.

That notion should have been dispelled the second she walked past the track and saw that Meg wasn’t running with _Morningstar_ or _Zeus_ like she usually did. Instead, she was on _Leggers_ ’ back. She had settled him into a gentle trotting, and at random times, she would pull from his reins to get him to change directions or go slower or faster. Claire had the impression he didn’t answer to the orders as smoothly as he did when she was the one mounting him, but that might have been more wishful thinking on her part.

Daphne was standing by the fence, with her hands in her jacket’s pocket, looking at the display with such attentiveness she didn’t notice when Claire halted and stood close to her. She hanged unto Bilbo’s collar to prevent him from jumping on her again and waited until Meg finished the last lap and ordered _Leggers_ to stop. She didn’t came down, just looked down on Daphne from the extra height the horse gave her.

After a moment, Daphne nodded.

“Well, you were right. He is an excellent specimen.”

“He’s still a little rough around the edges,” Meg said, and almost as if to prove it, _Leggers_ took a few steps and she had to pull the reins to get him to still again. “But it’s nothing a little daily practice can’t smooth out.”

Claire felt a cold shiver coming down her back, but she immediately relaxed when Daphne added.

“I’m still not sure he’ll be the right choice for the center. He has been receiving the training of a racehorses, like it or not.”

Meg’s mouth twisted a little, but it was impossible to tell if she was smirking or expressing discontent. She dismounted with a single fluid movement (something Claire still didn’t quite manage to do) and walked towards Daphne, pulling _Leggers_ behind her by the reins.

“Can’t say I’m really surprised,” she said. “You don’t seem to approve of what we do here, Doctor Allen.”

The tension from the night before returned in full force, or maybe it never really left. Daphne stiffened her shoulders, but she still sounded polite when she said:

“You’re right, I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why Castiel would come to work in a place like this. He did a great job where he was, an important job. Here, you just exploit your animals for entertainment and profit.”

She sounded so bitter Claire had to wonder if she was really talking about on behalf of the horses.

“But I would never exploit my horses or let them get injured,” Meg replied. Her tone was polite, but Claire knew her and “boss voice” well enough to know there was barely contained fury just boiling underneath the surface. “I am an athlete and they are my teammates. What they do it’s just as important as what I do.”

“So you’re saying what you do it’s a sports?” Daphne let out a snicker, as if she wasn’t at all convinced by Meg’s argument. “Forgive me, but what kind of sports it is when the athletes are forced to participate?”

“What kind of therapy it is where the helpers are forced, too?” Meg replied, arching an eyebrow, clearly not impressed by Daphne’s argument.

Daphne scoffed, but avoided Meg’s gaze, as if she really had nothing to answer to that.

“I can’t speak for Castiel or why he made his decision,” Meg continued. “But I do appreciate the work he does here with us and I’m thankful he’s with me. He has been of great help and honestly, I don’t know if I could have kept the ranch afloat without him.”

Claire was shocked at those words and so was Daphne. She turned her face towards Meg, her lips half-open as if she was at lost for an answer. Meg stuck her chin up, as if she was defying the other woman to contradict her. They stare at each other for such an intense moment Claire was about to clear her throat to try to interrupt them.

“Are the two of you involved?” Daphne asked in the end.

“We are,” Meg confirmed.

“He didn’t mention you when he called me.”

“Well, he didn’t tell me he had dated you when he proposed we called you.”

They fell into silence again. Claire was about to take a step backwards and continue her way to the stables before any of the two realized she was there when the last sound she expected to hear burst out of Daphne’s lips and then of Meg’s: chuckles. They were both laughing as if they had just shared the most hilarious joke.

“Oh, my God, he’s such an _idiot_ ,” Daphne commented.

“Leave it to him to forget something as essential as mentioning he had an ex coming over,” Meg agreed.

Daphne laughed a little louder while Meg opened the track’s fence and stepped outside, still pulling _Leggers_ behind her. It was only then that she turned her head and focused her attention on Claire.

“Hey, kid. Want to take him for a ride?” she offered, extending the reins towards her.

“Can I?” Claire asked. It was almost funny how used riding _Leggers_ had become part of her weekend routine. “I haven’t gone to the stables yet.”

“I think your uncle can clean them for you today and you can do the training.” Meg grinned. “You know, to shake things up a little bit.”

Claire didn’t hold back her smile. She climbed on _Leggers_ ’ back as if she had belonged there all along, sank her heels on his sides and set him running in the open field in front of them.

 

* * *

 

Benny looked at Castiel with utter pity when he walked into the stables. He handed him a shovel and informed her that Meg and Claire had the horses running out so he wasn’t… really needed out there. Benny probably thought it was a punishment of some sort, but to Castiel, it was almost a relief that he didn’t have to face Meg just yet. He had no idea what he was supposed to say to her. Was she mad he had invited Daphne without telling her? Did she care at all it was Valentine’s Day the following day or did she just… thought that was a thing for couples? And since they weren’t a couple, precisely, well…

And on top of it, this didn’t exactly solve the issue of the money she owed Tom.

He was reeling and thinking too much, as he usually did. He sighed deeply and Benny stopped shoveling the horse dung.

“She’s probably not going to kill you, chief, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Are you sure about that?” Castiel asked.

Benny opened his mouth and then closed it again. He really had no way of telling how Meg would react and they both knew this. Her fury was unpredictable and Castiel had really messed up. He wondered if he could just buy her a present to apologize, but a part of him just knew that Meg wouldn’t be distracted all that easily.

And then there was Daphne, who was much more amicable, that was true. Castiel would also feel the secondhand embarrassment burning through him when he had to talk to her again, so he wasn’t entirely sure which of the two was worse.

Benny just shook his head at him and they kept working in silence for the rest of the morning. Andrea brought them some sandwiches and Castiel decided to eat with Benny sitting on the grass outside. Yes, he supposed he was being a little cowardly. No, that wasn’t enough to get him inspired to find a way for him to crawl out of the whole he had dug himself into. He just wanted to wallow in self-pity for a little longer.

As the time to gather the horses and getting them back in the stables came, he knew he would have no choice but to confront the mess he had made. He was trying to get _Calypso_ and her filly inside when he heard the galloping approaching. He took a deep breath and turned around.

It was… not what he was expecting. Meg was on _Morningstar_ ’s back, of course, but she wasn’t alone. Right behind her came Claire on _Leggers_ … and Daphne, on _Zeus_.

Claire shot a look of discontent to Meg.

“You cheated,” she accused her.

“Or you’re still too afraid to go as fast as you could go,” Meg said with a shrug. “Until you lose that fear, you won’t be able to run.” She dismounted and set her eyes on Castiel, who shrunk a little. But Meg’s eyes weren’t shining with anger. On the contrary, there was a little smirk on his face. “Ah, Clarence. How was your day?”

“It was… okay,” Castiel said, confused, as she passed him by and guided Morningstar to his cubicle. Claire did the same thing and only Daphne and _Zeus_ stopped to talk to him.

“Hello,” she said. She didn’t seem mad at him either.

“Uh… hi,” Castiel replied, unable to hide you confusion. “Did you… have fun?”

“I did. You know, I spend so much time with the paperwork and the directing of the center that I never have time to interact with the horses,” she commented. She passed on the reins to him and patted _Zeus_ on the muzzle. “I actually missed this a lot.”

Castiel looked to his side. Meg had already unsaddled _Morningstar_ and was beginning to groom him, completely ignoring the both of them.

“Well, I’m… I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” he mumbled, clumsily.

He thought he heard someone coughing back a laugh, but he couldn’t tell if it was Meg, Claire or Benny. Instead of wondering where this change came from or if he had spent the entire day dreading something that wouldn’t come, Castiel simply took _Zeus_ inside to groom him as well.

“Hello, look at you!” Daphne exclaimed. She was looking at the cubicle where _Calypso_ and her yet unnamed filly were locked. _Calypso_ didn’t pay attention to her, but her filly gave her a wary look.

“That’s the newest member of the family,” Benny explained, picking up the carrot bucket so Daphne could offer them some snacks. “She’s a little cagey around strangers, but it’s only until she gets used to you.”

“Well, she is a beauty,” Daphne said. She offered the carrot to the filly and let her smell it. She patted her head with a little smile in her lips. “Yes, you are.”

She laughed when the filly sniffed her shirt looking for more treats. Castiel couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her so happy, even when they were dating. He glanced again at Meg, who shrugged at him. Clearly she didn’t think he needed an explanation as to how the storm he was fearing would come over him had blown past him, and after thinking it over for a moment, Castiel decided he really didn’t.

Andrea made meatloaf and potatoes for dinner that night, and as always, they were delicious. The conversation flowed easily and centered around the horses, as that seemed to be the common ground everybody shared. Meg numbered the races each had won, her eyes glimmering with pride as she remembered _Zeus_ and _Satrina_ ’s former victories and she even numbered a bunch of horses Castiel hadn’t got to meet.

“ _Poseidon_ , my God, that horse was a beauty,” she told them. “He’s the chestnut’s father, by the way.”

“ _Leggers_ ,” Claire corrected.

“We had to sell him, but damn I wish we could’ve kept him,” Meg continued, ignoring her completely. “But it was either him or _Zeus_ and I could never get rid of good old Z. He brought me too much joy.”

“You really do love them, don’t you?” Daphne asked. It sounded like she was a little bit surprised. Castiel knew she imagined all trainers and owners who ran races to be heartless monsters who asked too much of their horses.

“My grandfather taught me you have to respect them if you expect them to work with you. He respected horses more than he respected human beings, in fact.” Meg took a sip of her water and her expression dimmed a little. “One of his few good traits, I would say.”

Castiel knew instinctively it was best to change the topic.

“So… Daphne, will you… be driving back home tomorrow?”

“Oh, I actually decided to take Monday free,” Daphne explained. Immediately her cheeks went red. Castiel could imagine why she had decided that and immediately wished he had bitten his tongue. “But if it’s an inconvenience… I mean, if you had plans.”

“We… we didn’t,” Castiel said almost as rushed. “Not at all, in fact. I have to stay home with Claire.”

“I’m not staying home,” Claire intervened. “I told you, I’m going out with Alexis and Ben. We’re going to see _Hell Hazers VI: The Revenge_.”

Castiel had questions. The first of all was what theater was showing such a gruesome sounding film on Valentine’s Day of all nights. The second was when he’d given her permission to go out on a Sunday night and why Dean and Sheriff Mills did the same thing. He was going to have to call them and confirm this was actually a plan they were in support of, but Claire had stated it so matter-of-factly he was certain he was going to find out he had agreed with it at some point.

“We’ll be back before it gets late,” Claire added, rolling her eyes as if she could already predict Castiel’s protests. “I mean, it’s PG-13. Probably won’t even be that good.”

“We did have plans, but you can join us if you want to,” Andrea added, smiling at Daphne with her infinite hospitality. “We’ll make it a double date! Our friend Eli is recently divorced, isn’t he, Benny?”

“Oh, yeah, that handsome fella,” Benny said, touching his beard with a smile. “You’d like him.”

“I mean… I wouldn’t want to… impose or anything…” Daphne stuttered.

“Not at all, it will be fun!” Andrea insisted. “The more the merrier, right?”

“I don’t have anything appropriate to wear for a date…”

“I’ll take you shopping. It’s my free day tomorrow.”

There was really not much Daphne could say when she was ambushed with so much relentless kindness. She flushed and thanked Andrea and Benny for their kindness. Andrea said again that there was no problem and then insisted on everybody trying out the chocolate cake she had baked that afternoon.

 

* * *

 

Sunday was fairly typical and, for Morningstar, rather slow. They trained with the horses and then let them roam free on the field for a while. Meg seemed to be in a good enough mood, but Castiel couldn’t help wondering if she was just hiding her concerns in front of Claire. They called it a day early, because the weather was still rather chilly and because Claire had to leave for her afternoon with her friends.

“If it gets late, just call me and I’ll come pick you up,” Castiel reminded her as she zipped up her jacket and grabbed her backpack.

“We’ll be home before ten,” Claire said, rolling her eyes in the way that indicated she thought Castiel was being excessively overprotective. “Don’t worry about it.”

She patted _Bilbo_ on the head and ordered him to stay right before she sauntered out of the door as if she didn’t have a worry in the world. Castiel watched her go with a strange strangled feeling in his chest he couldn’t really described. He paced around the cabin for a while until he heard the rumor of Benny’s truck also driving away towards the gates and only then he dared to open the door. _Bilbo_ shot past him and disappeared in the dark. Castiel didn’t even try to call him back; the only person he ever obeyed was Claire.

Meg was in the living room of the main house when he arrived, drinking what appeared to be a cup of tea in front of the chimney. She had left the door open, so he let himself in and closed the door behind him. She barely lifted her head to acknowledge his presence until he let himself fall on the couch next to her.

“So… what are we going to do?” he asked. He figured there was no sense in beating around the bush. Their relationship hadn’t blown up for his stupid mistake, at least not yet, but the ranch was still tethering at the edge of the precipice.

Meg didn’t appear too concern about this as she took another sip of her cup.

“Damn, Cas. Not even a ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ or something?”

“I figured you wouldn’t be particularly interested in that kind of thing,” Castiel answered sincerely.

Meg leaned over to leave her mug over the coffee table and rubbed her temples.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she sighed after a pause. “I just… I really don’t know how to do this.”

Castiel blinked, confused. He had gone there to talk about the future of the ranch, since his plans of selling a horse to Daphne had backfired. He didn’t expect Meg to bring up… some other topic.

“I had some interesting chats with your ex,” she commented, casually. “About how you two were talking marriage and stuff before you moved here. Gave me the impression it was pretty damn serious.”

Castiel tapped his fingers against his knee, nervously, avoiding Meg’s glance. He hesitated for so long she ended shaking her head.

“You know what? You’re right. It’s none of my business…”

“You clearly care,” he pointed out.

“I _shouldn’t_ care,” Meg groaned. The anger in her voice caught him off guard and he turned to look at her. She was gesticulating rapidly with a deep frown between her eyebrows. “I shouldn’t care about your past or what you intend to do in the future. We said this wasn’t a serious…”

“You said it wasn’t serious.”

“Well, you agreed,” she pointed out. She still seemed irritated, though he couldn’t really say why. In fact, he wasn’t sure even she knew the reason.

He moved closer to her on the couch and grabbed her hand. She made no attempt at snatching it away from him.

“Daphne and I broke it off a couple of months before I landed this job,” he told her. “Yes, we had been serious up until that point. We were thinking about moving in together once Claire went off to college and eventually getting married, but there were… circumstances that forced us apart.”

“Such as?”

Castiel hesitated again, but this time Meg waited patiently.

“There was… an incident pertaining Claire that made me feel we needed a fresh start elsewhere,” he said. He still didn’t think it was his place to reveal those details. It was Claire’s secret to tell, not his. “I had made up my mind to move out of the city, but Daphne didn’t want to leave her job for us and she didn’t want to have a long distance relationship either. We respected each other’s decisions and called it off amicably.”

There were other things he could have told her as well. He could have told her how he didn’t think he had ever been truly in love with Daphne, that he had dated her because she was his friend and it was convenient. How it’d always been hard for him to meet people and even more so since he had to take Claire in, and to be honest, up until that point he hadn’t cared for having a girlfriend. How a part of him had been convinced that Claire needed something resembling a nuclear family and he was also grieving his brother and feeling terrified of this new responsibility and that had prompted him to accept Daphne’s invitation to go out for dinner with her. How their relationship had turned into a bit of a chore and he was half-dreading the day they would have to move forwards with it, because that was what normal couples were supposed to do and he felt he should, because that was the point of dating after all, wasn’t it?

He could have told Meg all this. He also, could have told her how it was different with her. How looking at her made his stomach do backflips and his knees grow weak, how he wished he could wake up to her face and her annoying energy every morning. He could have talked for hours about all the reasons he was mad about her and how he didn’t care if there was nothing conventional or normal about them. He just wanted her.

He would’ve told her all of that if it wasn’t because he was certain Meg would dismiss it all as pure sentimentalism. And also, because she was still looking at him with suspicion.

“Yet, she seemed pretty convinced this was a booty call when she showed up here.”

“I have no idea why she believed that,” Castiel said, truthfully. “I didn’t insinuate anything of the sort, and if I had, I think the honest thing would’ve been to let you know beforehand.”

Meg’s thumb drew circles in the back of his hand as she chewed on her lower lip for a moment.

“I believe you,” she said in the end. “Goddammit, you’re too decent not to be telling me anything but the truth right now and I am really bad at this.”

“Bad at what?” Castiel tilted his head.

“This!” Meg repeated, pointing at him and then at herself. “Relationships. I suck at them.”

“I… it can be hardly called a relationship, Meg,” he said. He didn’t mean to be so blunt, but after months of wondering and feeling like he was stepping on thin ice, he couldn’t really help it. “You’ve been keeping me at arm’s length…”

“And didn’t it occur to you there might be a reason for that?” she snapped. She let go of his hand and stood up to pace around the room. Castiel waited in silence, half stunned, half trying to stop himself from hoping. But when Meg finally stopped and turned to him, it was almost impossible: “Every relationship I’ve ever had has ended badly. I’m not talking just partners, I mean everyone. My best friend, my brother… everybody’s just… left.”

“And you think… this is because of something you’ve done?” Castiel asked, tentatively.

“Well, wouldn’t you?” Meg shot back. “You’ve met me, Clarence. Don’t think I’m not aware of just how abrasive I can be.”

Castiel needed a moment to put his thoughts in order. Of all the things he had expected from Meg, a confession like this would be the last of them. Then again, it wasn’t unprecedented, and just like every time she’d let him peek beyond her walls, he found himself in awe at her. Here was this wonderfully stubborn woman that had been raised for greatness at the expense of her softer sides, and yet, her softer sides found ways of manifesting themselves anyway. She was like a rose, thorny and defensive, and still so, so beautiful.

“What?” she snapped.

Instead of answering, Castiel stood up and walked up towards her. He brushed her hair out of her face and cupped her cheeks in his hands before leaving a peck on her lips.

“You are… the most ridiculous woman I’ve ever met,” he told her. “You’re exasperating and overwhelming, and I don’t believe there’s anything that you could do that would make me leave.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I am irrevocably in love with you.”

He was surprised at how easily the words slip out of his tongue. He had felt it for a while, that was true, maybe even before the first night they had spent together, but since Meg had rejected any type of talk about emotions, he had thought it was better to keep it quiet.

He hadn’t said it now to be romantic though. He was simply stating a fact.

Meg, however, reacted almost like he expected her to. She didn’t laugh in his face, but her eyes did grow wider as she stepped backwards to escape his touch.

“Holy shit, Clarence,” she muttered, staring at him with utter terror in her expression. “It’s been six months!”

“I know. I don’t expect you to feel the same way,” he assured her. “In fact, I know you don’t and that’s fine with me. I just wanted you to know that being with you, working with you… it’s more valuable to me than I can explain.”

Meg ran her fingers through her hair and scoffed a couple of times, as if she was choking on something.

“You’re crazy,” she concluded.

“Perhaps,” Castiel admitted, freely. Meg shook her head, as if she was still in utter disbelief. “Please don’t take this to mean I want something from you that you’re not ready for. I know you’re going through a lot right now…”

“I’d say,” Meg replied with a nervous chuckle.

“… but I just needed you to know this,” he continued. “I’m here for you, Meg. And I will be here for as long as you let me. Because I love you.”

Meg pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed deeply.

“Why you gotta go and just say something like that?”

Castiel was wondering the same thing. He was already starting to regret his brutal honesty.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“You… ah, fuck,” she mumbled. “This is really going to complicate things.”

Castiel didn’t have time to ask what she meant by that. In the blink of an eye, Meg was in his space again, her arms lassoing around his neck and pulling him down to her. Castiel closed his eyes as their lips met and held her tight against his body, almost as if he was trying to repeat everything he had already said, to transmit to her that he had meant every word.

Meg broke away after a couple of breaths.

“Come upstairs with me?”

It was a request, not an order or an assumption that he would. She was just full of surprises that night.

“I can’t stay long,” he reminded her.

“That’s fine.”

She grabbed him by the hand and waited for him to take the first step.

And as always, he followed her blindly.


	30. Unsaid

“You can’t tell me that blood didn’t look fake! It looked fake as fuck and you know it! It looked orange sometimes, for fuck’s sake!”

Claire wasn’t sure what exactly was so fun about what she was stating, because it was absolutely true and she couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen a horror movie this awful, but Ben and Alexis seemed to find it hilarious. So she pretended to be more outraged about the cheap looking effects, the terrible costume decisions and the subpar acting than she actually was. Her rant lasted the two hours they had to drive back into town and well until they parked in front of Ben’s house.

“I’m picking the movie next time!” she said, pointing a finger at Ben. “We’re going to see something R-rated, you hear me?”

“Fine, you sadist freak.” Ben rolled his eyes at them and got out of the Maverick. He walked around it and leaned over the passenger window to let out one last quip: “I actually thought some of the jump scares were very effective…”

“Get the fuck out of here!” Claire ordered. Ben fled across his yard as if the Devil himself was chasing him and Alexis laughed even louder. “Can you believe this guy? Last time he drags us to watch a sequel, I swear.”

“I mean, I’m not gonna say it was a good movie,” Alexis said, raising her hands in the air as Claire started the car again. “But like, is it really worth having a stroke over?”

“Hell, yeah. They completely ruined the series. I mean, the first ones were no master pieces, but at least they were watchable.”

Alexis chuckled again and then went quiet. Claire took a quick glance at her and realized it was the first time in almost a month when they were actually alone. Usually Ben was with them all the time, making jokes, goofing around and just generally not letting the conversation fall into the kind of awkward silence they were having right then. They hadn’t talked about what had happened at the Winter Formal and immediately after. If it was up to Claire, they wouldn’t talk about it, ever, but the seconds dragged on in front of a red light and she didn’t dare to stretch her hand and turn the radio on to drown out the quiet.

So in a way, it was inevitable that that elephant would eventually come tumbling down on top their heads, demanding to be acknowledged.

“So…” Alexis started and cleared her throat. “What’s going on… between the two of you?”

“Really? That’s how you’re going to put it?” Claire cringed.

“I don’t know!” Alexis replied, fully aware of the awkwardness. “I mean, I thought he talked to you after the dance…”

“He did,” Claire admitted. She was grabbing the wheel with too much force and she willed herself to relax. “I told him what I told you. I like him… just not that way. He took it well. That was the end of it.”

She omitted all the other things she had told Ben and how cool he had been about them. He was the first person in Northeast Haven, outside of her immediate family, to know the exact truth about her and that was no means something to ignore.

“Oh,” Alexis muttered. Not the most eloquent commentary, but Claire really didn’t know what she was expecting. They were finally rolling down her street and there was nothing in the world she would’ve liked more than to be done with that conversation.

And yet, Alexis looked so disappointed, so sad for some reason…

“So… it’s okay if you want to date him,” Claire said. She felt a strange oppression on her chest as the words came out of her mouth, but she pressed on: “I know you like him. I really don’t mind…”

“No!” Alexis interrupted her, a little too abruptly. She grimaced and shook her head. “It’s just… I do, I like him. But I don’t want to be with him because I’m his second best choice. If that makes any sense.”

“It does,” Claire assured her. “It makes a lot of sense. You’re brilliant, Alex. You deserve someone who will always put you first.”

She bit her tongue and looked away. As always, the stupidly gay part of her brain was kicking in and leading her to say really stupid bullshit. Alexis stared at her for what seemed like an eternity and Claire forced herself to hold her gaze. She didn’t want to seem like she was embarrassed or that she had meant anything by it. But, oh, dammit, Alexis’ grey eyes were so big and they looked almost silver in the dim car light and her lips were just partly open and she was so close, dammit, when had she got so close…?

The house’s door swung open and both Claire and Alexis jumped backwards. Sheriff Mills made her way to the car in her robe and shot them a very severe look.

“You’re late, girls,” she told them.

“Sorry, mom,” Alexis said, quickly.

“Yes, sorry, Mrs. Mills,” Claire replied. Her face felt like it was suddenly on fire. “We were just talking and we lost track of time…”

“Well, whatever it is, you can keep talking about it tomorrow at school,” Jody replied, arching an eyebrow at them.

“Yes. Sorry again,” Claire mumbled as Alexis got out of the car.

“Drive carefully,” Jody recommended. “And send Alex a text so we know you got home okay.”

“Yes, of course.” Claire started the car again, when she heard Alexis calling her name. She leaned over to look at her, but Alexis looked a little flustered. As if she wasn’t sure what she had done that for.

“Goodnight,” she said in the end.

“Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Claire replied clumsily.

She drove away maybe a little bit too fast and she turned the radio a little bit too loud to try not to hear her own thoughts. Her heart was pounding fast as if she’d just run a marathon and her mind was racing. What the hell had been that? Had she really just spent several seconds staring at Alexis’ lips? Had Alexis noticed? Had she been uncomfortable? Had she leaned over to get closer to Claire or had Claire imagined that? She was pretty sure that hadn’t actually happened. It couldn’t have possibly happened. The movie had been so bad it had completed messed up her sense of reality.

By the time she passed the ranch’s gates and closed them behind her (she had been granted the grace of possessing her own key for nights like these), she decided that was probably it. She had seen what she wanted to see because the stupidly gay part of her brain just wouldn’t give her a rest and she was still pissed off at how they had ruined a perfectly serviceable horror movie franchise. Because Alexis was straight and Claire really needed to get her shit together.

 _Bilbo_ was sleeping in the cabin’s doorstep. He lifted his head when he saw her approach and trotted towards her to jump and try to lick her face as he always did.

“Down, boy,” Claire said, patting his head before she grabbed him by the collar. “What are you doing out so late?”

The answer became clear once she entered the cabin: the lights were off and everything was quiet. That was odd. She had expected Castiel to have been awake waiting for her to return and reprimand her for the late hour, like Sheriff Mills had done. But if he had gone to sleep, why had he left _Bilbo_ outside? And why couldn’t she hear his massive snores coming from his bedroom?

The answer became clear a second later, when the door burst open and Castiel stumbled inside. He looked a bit frantic, with his eyes open wide and his hair all messed up. Claire looked him up and down, taking in his creased pants and his wrongly buttoned shirt. He obviously had dressed and got back in a haste, because his face was still red despite the cold night and he was slightly gasping for air.

She would never have another chance so perfect to taunt him.

“Do you have any idea what time it is, Castiel Novak?” she asked, putting a hand on her hip and pretending to be very mad at him. “Were you out with that Masters girl again?”

Castiel didn’t appreciate the joke, because he looked at her with squinted eyes.

“I could ask you the same thing…”

“No, don’t even try, dude,” Claire interrupted him with a laugh. “You totally lost the moral high ground here. Again.”

“Go to sleep,” Castiel groaned. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”

Claire made sure to chuckle loud enough for him to hear her as she marched down the hallway. She was aware she was kind of acting like a brat, but at the same time, it was hilarious to her that Castiel was still trying to protect her from the fact he was sleeping with Meg. Any other night, she would’ve teased him about it, but tonight, she still had things to think about.

Like the way Alexis’ eyes shone in the car lights. And the way her heart fluttered when Alexis leaned over just a little bit too close. And how, oh, how much Claire would have liked to close the distance between the two and…

 _Bilbo_ jumped on the bed with her and Claire curled up against him, patting him in the head.

“Your mom’s crazy, _Bilbo_ ,” she told him. “She’s thinking about things she definitely has no right to be thinking.”

She was still smiling and letting her imagination run wild when she finally fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

Meg and Daphne were sitting across each other on the breakfast table, each with a mug of coffee in their hands. They were writing things and punching numbers on the calculators in their phones and they looked very concentrated on something. Castiel watched them for a moment from outside the glass door, gathering up the courage he would need to face them both at the same time again, and finally walked inside.

“… I’ll call the bank and the deposit will be done by the end of the day,” Daphne was saying. “I can also arrange the transportation. They can be here a little after noon.”

“Great,” Meg replied, smiling kindly. “You can use the landline in the living room to make the calls. Cellphone signal isn’t always the best here.”

Daphne nodded and stood up.

“Good morning, Castiel,” she said, finally acknowledging his presence as she walked towards the living room.

“Good morning,” he muttered. He turned his attention to Meg the moment they were alone. “Did you… reach an agreement?”

Meg sighed and pushed the papers towards him so he could take a look at them.

“It wasn’t easy,” she commented. “I probably could’ve got more if I had sold within the circuit.”

Castiel looked at the numbers in front of him and nodded. Of course, it still wasn’t enough to cover for all she owed to Tom, but it should suffice to keep their heads above water. And after all, he was glad it was Daphne they had made this arrangement with.

“I think we should also call the Cuevas and see how that broodmare of theirs is doing,” Meg continued.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Castiel said, even though he was aware that Meg wasn’t really asking his opinion on this matter. She looked pensive, holding her mug in her and looking away, as if she was lost in thought. Castiel stretched his hand and placed it on her forearm. “Meg… you did the right thing.”

“Yeah? So why does it feel like I’ve fucked up majorly?”

"There's no way to know whether we've been right or not when we make a decision," Castiel replied. "I guess only time can tell us that."

"Well, thank you, Gandhi." Meg rolled her eyes, but then she put her mug down and placed her hand on top of his. There was a faint smirk on her lips, as if she wasn't sure she had any right to be smiling about this or not. "But really, thank you. Daphne does seem like the right choice after all."

Castiel smiled back at her and leaned over to give her a kiss. Meg closed her eyes and stay right here she was. It was... unusual. Usually she either kissed him back passionately, putting her hand on the back of his neck to pull him closer, or she pushed him away playfully telling him they didn't have time for that right then. She did neither of those things this time. She just stay where she was, her thumb drawing circles in the back of his hand, her nose grazing his so that her breath tingled in his skin.

It was a sweet, almost chaste kiss, so unlike what they usually did that Castiel wondered if it had anything to do with what he had confessed the night before. But before he could speculate much about it or try to deepen the kiss, someone in the door cleared their throat loudly.

"Sorry to interrupt," Daphne told them. Her tone was light, calm, but Castiel perceived there was a certain tension in the edge of her smile. "I, uh... everything is ready."

"Great." Meg pushed her chair backwards and stood up. "A pleasure to make business with you. Are you leaving now or are you staying until the transportation comes?"

"Actually, I think I might stay, if you don't mind," Daphne said. "It's been an entire weekend and I think I barely exchanged any words with Cas."

She wasn't wrong, but Castiel couldn't help but to be a little surprised. He had avoided the fight with Meg, somehow, but he wasn't sure he could do the same with Daphne, especially if she go into what he called "therapist mode" and tried to get a confession out of him.

But before he could come up with an excuse, Meg glanced at him and then at Daphne, still smiling with a courtesy that was almost out of character for her.

"As long as you don't mind having that conversation while we train, that's fine by me."

Daphne didn't have a problem with this. She came with them to the stables and helped them tend to the horses and then walked with them through the frozen field to lean on the track's fence while Meg ran laps with _Morningstar_. He was having one of those days when he refused to respond to Meg's orders as quickly as she would like, so she had to stop and start again a couple of times until he got the gist that he wasn't getting away with his.

"That horse looks like a nightmare," Daphne commented.

"He was. He is," Castiel agreed. "I think there's a part of him that will always be unbroken. But that's not really a problem. He is a champion even though he is imperfect and stubborn."

Daphne tilted her head with a mocking smile.

"Are we still talking about the horse?" she asked.

Castiel was going to play dumb and say he didn't know what else they could've been possibly talking about, but Daphne shook her head before he even began.

"It's okay, Castiel. I can see why you fell in love with this place and its horses." She made a pause and very softly added: "Why you fell in love with her."

Castiel didn't even try denying it, but he clenched his jaw a little. His love for Meg was something he still thought of as very private, even after saying it out loud. He wasn't sure how he felt about Daphne talking so openly about it.

"You never looked at me the way you look at her," she said, answering a question Castiel didn't ask. "And I only had to be in the room for two seconds with the two of you to realize."

"Meg is... she is extraordinary," Castiel said. He had his eyes fixed on her figure as she leaned forwards over _Morningsta_ r's neck, trying to gain as much speed as it was possible.

“She does some very strong-willed,” Daphne admitted, though in Castiel’s opinion, that was saying too little. She made a pause and added: “Does she know you feel that way about her?”

“Yes. She does.”

“And does she feel the same way?”

He didn’t answer this time, but he slowly, he turned his face towards Daphne.

“You’re worried about me,” he pointed out.

“Shouldn’t I be?” Daphne asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t matter what else happened between us, Castiel. I still consider us friends.”

“I do too.”

“Which is why I don’t want you getting hurt,” she continued. “I’m worried about you. I understand what happened to Claire was very difficult, but do you really think you did the right thing bringing her here?”

Castiel almost wanted to laugh, because the only answer to that was the exact same thing he had told Meg not an hour earlier.

“If you ask me if, in hindsight, I think I made the right choice… I would tell you I did,” he admitted. “And I would do it again.”

The hurt on Daphne’s face came and passed fast, so fast Castiel could almost convinced himself that he had imagined it. The fact was, whether he wanted to face it or not, that Daphne had been more invested in them than he ever was. He had broken her heart when he moved away and one more time when he had called her there only for her to find that he hadn’t been interested in rekindling their relationship.

But she didn’t seem angry at him. She wasn’t shouting at him or demanding he gave her an answer for his indifference towards her. She was only inquiring about his well-being and Claire’s. The pang of guilt in his chest was almost painful. He clumsily changed the topic:

“What about Eli?” he asked her. “Did you… have a good time with him?”

“He seemed like a good person.” Daphne shrugged. “But he wasn’t really my type.”

Castiel breathed in deeply.

“Daphne, I’m sorry…”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything,” Daphne interrupted him. “You did what you thought was best for you and your family. Never feel like you have to apologize to me for that.”

Castiel wasn’t sure what else to say, but luckily for him, he didn’t have to. Meg called out from the stall that they were ready to start running and Daphne announced that she was going to her room to finish packing her bags. So Castiel was left standing on the edge of the track, watching the numbers in his clock and wondering if there was anything else he should have said to either of them.

 

* * *

 

The day was strangely sunny for it being the middle of February. Ben said it was global warming at work, Claire said her sacrifice to the gods of the weather must have been working. Next time, she was going to kill the writers of the _Hell Hazers_ movies, though she wasn’t too sure anyone would accept that sacrifice. Ben thought it was hilarious she was still pissed off about it.

“We literally watched it last night,” Claire pointed out, while he laughed out loud in her face as they walked towards their lockers. “I haven’t had time to find something to wash it out of my brain.”

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that horrible,” he insisted.

“That’s only because you’re too much of a coward to watch an actual horror move worth its gore.”

“What does that even mean?” Ben laughed, as they moved towards Alexis’ locker.

“It means that… hey, are you okay?” Claire asked.

Alexis was standing in front of her open locker, with two books in her arms and pale cheeks. She had a pink rectangle in her hand and staring at it, slightly horrified. She turned to them with her eyes wide open and her lower lip trembling, as if she was fighting against the tears.

The alarms on Claire’s head immediately went off.

“What is it?” she asked. She took the rectangle from Alexis’ hand and read it quickly. Her blood immediately started boiling.

It was a Valentine’s card. It had a little bear hugging a heart in it and a message that read: “Still thinking of you”. It was only signed “H.”, as if he was trying to be mysterious or something, but it didn’t take a lot of effort to deduce who had sent it.

“The nerve of that asshole…” Claire muttered, squeezing the card in her hand.

She turned around, because she was sure the little dickhead was going to be around somewhere. There was no way he had done that and not be around to see Alexis’ reaction. He was a little sociopath like that. She was going to slap him so hard…

“Claire,” Ben called her. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not worth it.”

Claire centered her attention back on Alexis. Ben was holding her against his neck and even though she was quiet, the way her shoulders shook and trembled gave away the fact that she was crying. Claire took a deep breath to force herself to calm down and went to her.

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m sorry,” she told her, rubbing her arm to let her know she was there. “Do you… do you need us to call your mom?”

Alexis let out a gargled sound, shook her head and then took a deep breath before she spoke again:

“No… no. I just… can you come to the bathroom with me?”

Claire accompanied her there and stood around watching her with worry as Alexis blew her nose and wiped her eyes with the toilet paper.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. She opened the faucet and splashed water on her face. She took a couple more of shaky breaths and then forced out a smile. “I didn’t think he would do something like that. Fuck, I don’t know why it affected me so much?”

“I will kick his ass,” Claire groaned.

“No. Please, don’t.” Alexis turned to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure that’s exactly what he wants. He wants some sort of reaction from me. I’m just… I’m going to ignore him.”

The rational part of Claire’s brain indicated that Alexis was right. Her anger still wanted to get out there and let Henry know just how much of a douche he was.

“I hate that he made you cry, though,” she said, gritting her teeth. “You deserve so much better than that.”

Alexis didn’t reply immediately. She just stood in silence, staring directly at Claire, her grey eyes fixed on hers. Claire swallowed, her stomach twisting up in an unpleasant knot, unsure what she was supposed to do or say. Suddenly her hands were tingly and her mind was in disarray.

“Yeah,” Alexis muttered. “I think…”

Claire never found out what Alexis thought. The bell rang loud and long, startling them both. Alexis took a stepped backwards and Claire started breathing again.

“We’re going to be late,” Alexis giggled and headed for the door.

Claire took a second to put her ideas in order and then followed her. Ben was waiting outside for them.

“I will be your douchebag repellent,” he announced as he followed them down the hall. “Your bodyguard. I might not sing like Whitney Houston…”

“Whitney Houston isn’t the bodyguard in that movie!” Claire said and Alexis let out a chuckle. It was music to her ears; that she had recovered enough to laugh like that. “Get out of here, you’re going to be late!”

Ben ran down the hall, skidded to a halt and waved at them. Claire was about to say something snarky, when Alexis’ fingers intertwined with hers and squeezed her hand.

“Let’s go!” Alexis said with a half-chuckle.

Claire was so startled and fascinated by the warmth of her hand that she couldn’t do much, except smile back and follow her towards the classroom.


	31. The Future

Mr. Phelps passed the essays around the class.

“Well, done, Alexis,” he said, as he placed the stacks on paper in front of her. The A was circled in red, as if Mr. Phelps had hoped there wouldn’t be any confusion about it. “Didn’t expect any less from you.”

“Nerd,” Claire muttered at her.

“Shut up,” Alexis said, but she couldn’t hide the pride in her smile.

She was a lot more cheerful than she had been that morning when they found the Valentine’s card. Claire and Ben had reached a silent agreement to not leave her alone while she walked to the hallways and that had probably discouraged Henry to try to get closer to them. Or maybe he was expecting Alexis to make the first move. Either way, they were in the last period of classes and nothing had come of it, so Claire was counting that as a victory.

“Open your books,” Mr. Phelps instructed as he walked to the front of the class. “We’re going to pick up where we left yesterday. So, post-World War II, American literature experimented…”

“Uh… Mr. Phelps?” Claire raised her hand, frowning. “You didn’t return my essay.”

Mr. Phelps looked at her over his glasses with a little frown. It was impossible to tell if he was confused or irritated at the interruption.

“Yes, Miss Novak,” he said in the end. “See me after class.”

And he continued talking as if he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. Claire blinked a couple of times and exchanged a confused glance with Alexis, who could only offer her a shrug and more confusion. Mr. Phelps continued his lesson and Claire started taking notes about the Beat Generation as fast as she could, all the while wondering what could possibly have gone wrong. She had handed her essay in time and she thought she had done a good job. Had she really fucked up so bad? Oh, God, she hoped she hadn’t. English was her favorite subject, if she had failed there, she might as well resign herself to cleaning shit from Meg’s stables for the rest of her life.

The hour dragged on for what she seemed like an eternity and when the bell finally rang, Claire made sure to pick up all of her things very slowly. She mouthed to Alexis that she would catch up with her later and waited until everybody else had left to approach Mr. Phelps’ desk.

“Ah, yes, Novak,” he said before she could even open her mouth. “I am debating whether to fail you or not.”

“Why?” Claire asked, genuinely lost. Mr. Phelps opened his desk’s drawer and took out the pages she had written.

“The essay was supposed to be about Scott Fitzgerald. You wrote yours about Zelda Fitzgerald.”

“Oh!”

She had done that bit of trolling because she had thought Mr. Phelps had been really pedantic when he mentioned Zelda had only written one novel in her life and then completely disregarded everything about her to continue talking about the jazz bros Hemingway and Scott. With the turmoil that had been all exams and the constant activity at the ranch, she had completely forgotten about that.

Mr. Phelps was still staring at her, as if he awaited an explanation. Claire decided that she had made a choice and the only right thing to do now was stick to it.

“Well, you should have been more specific,” she said. “You didn’t clarify which Fitzgerald you meant.”

“I clearly meant the one who went on to become one of the most influential writers in later years.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Phelps, that’s exactly what I argue in my essay. Zelda could have grown as a writer and become just as influential as her husband if it wasn’t for her untreated mental illness, which was more likely exacerbated by his abuse and neglect.”

“Yes, I read it,” Mr. Phelps replied, intertwining his fingers over the table. His expression was still serious, but Claire thought she detected the tiniest of twitches in the edge of his lips, as if he was fighting with himself not to smile. And just like that, she knew she wasn’t in any trouble, even before he added: “It was very well-written and researched. It gave me the impression that you’re a very passionate and smart young woman.”

“Well, I don’t know about smart,” Claire said, with a little shrug. “I am barely passing Math and Chemistry.”

“There’s different types of intelligence, Claire,” he replied. It was the first time he called her by her first name the way he and other professors did with Alexis and other students he liked. He picked up a black pen and scribbled a big “A” on top of the essay’s first page. After a second, he added a plus sign next to it. “Keep doing what you’re doing. You might go far.”

Claire left the classroom with a strange kind of satisfaction bubbling inside of her. The type of satisfaction that came from having past a difficult test or getting vindication over an enemy. It was almost as satisfactory as that time she punched Henry in the face.

“And he let you get away with this?” Ben exclaimed when she found him and Alexis in the parking lot and explained to them what happened. “I call bullshit. He never likes alternative theories on books.”

“Ben, as I explained then, reading _The War of Worlds_ as a prophecy of the inevitability of human extinction is not an alternative theory,” Alexis said, with a chuckle. They got inside the car and Claire started the engine.

“You don’t know that. Aliens are out there,” Ben insisted as they sped away from the school. Both girls laugh at him and he shrugged. “Damn, I wish I could have an A plus to take home to mom. I think she already resign to the fact I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.”

“That’s not true. You’re smart,” Alexis said. Claire said nothing. “Claire!”

“I mean, I’ve met dumber people.”

“That’s okay girls. I know I’m not going to be a NASA scientist or something,” Ben said. But his tone didn’t have the usual joviality, which actually manage to make Claire feel guilty.

“Hey, come on, I didn’t mean it like that. There’s more important things in life than being smart. Like, you’re actually not intolerable to be around.”

“Claire, I don’t think that’s any better,” Alexis commented, but Ben smiled at her in the rearview mirror.

“Maybe you’re right. And hey, working in the scrapyard with Dean may not really be that bad.”

“But is that what you really want to do?” Claire asked.

There was a long pause in which they arrived at Ben’s home and parked in front. However, Ben didn’t reach for the handle and waved them goodbye, like he did every day. Instead, he remain where he was, fidgeting with the strap of his backpack.

“Okay, don’t laugh,” he requested, when both girls turned around to look at him. “I have always dreamed I would be… a stand-up comedian.”

Claire didn’t laugh. Mostly because she was a little startled by the revelation. Yes, Ben was a funny guy, but she didn’t think she’d ever heard him telling a full joke. Or act in a school play or anything that would indicate he had an inclination for acting. She glanced at Alexis to take a note of how she was reacting and was relieved when she saw she was just as confused as Claire.

“Well… that’s interesting,” she said, clumsily.

“Yeah, whatever, dude,” Claire added with a shrug. “If you want to go for it, you should go for it.”

“Maybe.” Ben looked outside the window as if he was weighing in something. “I just… mostly, I just want to get out of this town. See what kind of things are out there.”

“Yeah.” Alexis nodded, as if what Ben was saying made a lot of sense.

Claire had grown up in a quiet suburban town when her parents were alive and she’d had to move to New York City way before her hunger for going out into the world and living adventures settled in. She couldn’t imagine what it was like growing up in a sleepy town like Northeast Haven, always yearning for something more. It made her a little jealous this was something Alexis and Ben shared that she couldn’t.

“Well, maybe we should, you know?” she suggested. The other stare at her as if she’d suddenly started talking Chinese. “Go on a trip, I mean. The three of us. Just… take on the road and go somewhere this summer. You know, before Alexis leave us for her Ivy League School and lucrative career and Ben becomes a famous actor that forgets all about us.”

“I could never!” Ben protested.

“I’m going into pre-Med. I will most likely end up deep in student loans for ages before I can actually make some money,” Alexis laughed. She put a strand of hair behind her ear, pensively. “But that sounds… very nice.”

They agreed to talk about it later through their group chat and Ben finally got out of the car and headed for his home.

“Did you know about that?” Claire asked as they headed for Alexis house.

“No. And we’ve been friends for years,” she admitted. She sounded just as perplexed as Claire felt. “Maybe he just said it to have something, you need? I don’t think he even knows what he wants to do after we graduate.”

“Well, I can’t really blame him. I have no idea either,” Claire confessed. She had written some half-hearted essays and sent four applications during the past month, but mainly because Alexis and Ben were doing it. With the way her grades had slipped in the previous year, she didn’t expect anything to come out of it.

“You know, if you went to the same school than I’m going to, we could live together.”

Claire had to resist the impulse to stomp on the breaks or swerve off the street. Alexis didn’t seem to find anything odd about her comment, and when she continued speaking, Claire realized she shouldn’t either:

“Going to a new town, to live by myself… it sounds a bit scary. And besides, if I had a roommate I could save money by not living in the dorms…”

“Yeah, who wants that anyway?” Claire said with a nervous laugh.

“Come on, is the idea of living with me really that terrible? You practically do every other weekend.”

Claire had no idea what to say to that because, no, it wasn’t that terrible. It actually sounded wonderful. More than wonderful, it sounded amazing. They could binge watch series and watch movies together every night. They could give each other moral support when they were too exhausted from their studies. She could wake up to Alexis’ face every morning and have coffee together and laugh about whatever strange thing Ben was doing next.

Of course, she knew that was all just a fantasy that the stupidly gay part of her brain was generating. Living with Alexis would be completely different from their sleepovers. Alexis was orderly, while Claire was – as Castiel always reminded her – a complete and utter mess. She was grumpy in the mornings and although she had managed to hide that ugly part of her personality from Alexis, she knew she couldn’t keep it up every single day. There would be bad days, really bad days; not just silly misunderstandings like the Winter Formal. Days when she wouldn’t see a point in getting out of bed and showering. Days where she would feel angry for no reason and lash out at everyone.

And there would be the other stuff, too. Alexis meeting boys she would like. Alexis asking her opinion on what to wear for a date. Alexis actually having a boyfriend and Claire having to pretend that she was happy for her even though she was actually drowning in jealousy. Her crush on her best friend had evolved way past a single crush, but on good days, Claire managed not to think about it. It was like a small wound that she kept bandaged even though it never quite healed. And living with Alexis would be like picking at the scab every single day.

“Claire?”

Claire realized with a startle that she had been quiet for way too long. She tried to force another laugh, but she didn’t think it came out believable at all.

“I mean, I’ll have to think about it. I really don’t know what I’m going to do, Alex.”

Alexis’ couldn’t hide her disappointment. Her smile faltered a little and she looked out of the window for a moment.

“Okay,” she muttered. “But, what do you see yourself doing? What do you like?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of a heavy topic.” Claire shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.”

Alexis couldn’t keep pressing on the issue because they had finally arrived at her place. They said their goodbyes and Claire left, taking to the street maybe a little faster than it was strictly necessary. Anyone looking from outside would have thought she was fleeing, and maybe she was, a little bit.

Because Alexis had brought up another issue that she didn’t want to think about.

It had been almost four years since the accident, since her parents had died and her world turned upside down. It felt like it had been an eternity ago, like it had happened to another person. Not that she didn’t miss them or that it didn’t hurt that they were gone. Sometimes she wished she could talk to them. Her mom would be horrified that she had a dog that she let on the bed, but her dad would probably laugh and be a little more concern about the fact she had stopped going to church and saying grace before every meal.

Back then, back in Illinois, she had plans. She wanted to write. Other kids drew; Claire wrote silly little poems that her mom pinned to the refrigerator with colorful magnets. She loved reading books and she loved watching movies because she loved stories. So when somebody asked, she would tell them she wanted to be a writer. It sounded logical, it sounded right. What else was she supposed to be? Her dad would tell her she needed to consider a safer work path and of course she could write, but she also needed to think about something that would give her money while she wrote her books and established herself. Claire would laugh, because it wouldn’t really matter. Her parents would be there to support her in the meantime.

That had been in her previous life. In her actual life, she hadn’t told anybody that she wanted to write. If she had, she supposed they would have been as surprised as she was at Ben’s dreams of becoming a comedian.

After the accident, though, she wasn’t so sure anymore that there was something set in stone. Her uncle was great, he had done right by her. He had taken her in and provided for her, but at the same time, deep down, Claire couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t fair to expect the same kind of boundless devotion from him as she had from her parents. It had taken a while and a shrink’s help her come around to the fact that she’d had to look out for herself. Castiel would be there, of course, but it just wouldn’t be the same. She figured most people eventually accepted that their parents wouldn’t always be there for them, but they usually didn’t have to do it at fourteen and in such an abrupt manner.

She didn’t write stories or poems any more by then, but she did keep a diary, which her shrink encouraged because it helped her process her feelings or some bullshit like that. She remembered writing that summer that maybe she could study English and become a professor or something like that. It would still be related to what she loved and it would provide a steady income. Many writers she admired did this, it didn’t mean she had to back down from her dreams. Just… put a more realistic coat of paint on them.

And then that other thing had happened and… it brought something upon her. It was like the ground opened up as her world fell apart for a second time and she was caught underneath all the debris. She had been in that very dark place for almost a year, struggling to breath, struggling to find sense in it all again. She tried telling herself that there were people who had it much worse, that went through things that were even more damaging. She still woke up every morning wondering why the hell was she still alive and if it would ever stop hurting.

Castiel tried to send her to a shrink again and maybe she should have gone, but at that point, Claire didn’t think there was anything anyone could do to help her, so she had refused. In hindsight, that might not have been the soundest decision, but then again, she wasn’t thinking about taking care of herself. She didn’t think she deserved it.

She had stopped writing altogether by then. It was like all of these tragedies had slowly taken the words away from her and she didn’t know where to find them anymore. And if she couldn’t write, she couldn’t be a writer. She also didn’t have the energy to keep her grades up and it was almost a miracle she had passed the year at all. She stopped making plans for the future, because whenever she looked ahead, it was like watching the Nothing from the Neverending Story: like she had gone blind or like her future had simply ceased to exist.

Of course, it hadn’t. It was just waiting for her to finally pay attention to it again.

And she wasn’t in that dark place anymore, though she couldn’t tell exactly when she had come out of it. Maybe she hadn’t, at all. Sometimes she suspected she hadn’t woken up from the nightmare, but that she was dreaming right now and that the dark place would be there, waiting to drag her down again when she woke up. A part of her, an ugly part, didn’t think making plans for the future was worth the effort.

But another part, the part that knew that life wouldn’t go away just because she didn’t feel like living it, knew that she had to at least think about it. She had to consider what she was going to do at some point and that point, which had looked like ages away just last summer, was approaching fast. In a few months, she would graduate high school. She would turn eighteen on April, which meant she was going to be a fucking adult soon. People would stop babying her and tiptoeing around her issues. Castiel would probably want to stop putting his life on hold for her and marry Meg. And if not Meg, someone else. Her friends had plans, they would move on like most of them had moved on when she stopped answering their calls back in New York.

So again, she was going to come to terms with the fact that she was alone in this decision. And that she would have to make it eventually.

But not right now. For now, she could just go home and maybe take _Leggers_ out for a ride. She had found that always help clearing her head and she sort of understood now why Meg chose this career path for her. All problems seemed easier to outrun from the back of a thoroughbred.

The thought made her smile a little. She leaned over to turn on the radio…

The honk blasted in her ears and Claire jumped back on her seat; her foot instinctively hitting the breaks. The tires screeched over the pavement as the Maverick came to an abrupt halt on the side of the road. Claire stared at the road for a few seconds, gripping the wheel tight while hear heart slowed down and her brain tried to catch up with what had just happened.

The secondary road that lead to the ranch was narrow, which usually didn’t matter because it was only one or two cars at the time coming and going. But now Claire could see a wide truck speeding away in her rearview mirror, which also wasn’t unusual. It was the kind of large truck that came to the ranch to transport the Hell Horse whenever Meg and Castiel had a race. She had seen it several times.

But they didn’t have a race that week. So what the hell was it doing there…?

“No,” Claire muttered. The blood fled from her head, leaving her dizzy, as if the ground had started to grumble and shake again. “No, no, she didn’t. She wouldn’t.”

She started the car again and stomped on the accelerator. Meg couldn’t have sold _Leggers_. She needed him for the next season of races. He was a thoroughbred, he was born to run. Meg would never allow him to be taken to a therapy center where children would pull his tail and…

Benny was about to close the gates when she reached them, but opened them up again for her. Claire abandoned the Maverick outside the garage and didn’t even bother to close the door behind her as she ran towards the stables, as fast as her legs would take her there. Her eyes were burning and she could barely breathe when she burst through the door, but she still managed to find her voice to scream:

“ _Leggers_? _Leggers_!”

 _Persephone_ and _Zeus_ were on their cubicles and even _Satrina_ looked over her fence. For a second, the darkness of the stables and her own despair played a trick on Claire’s mind and she thought his cubicle was definitely empty and oh, God, Meg had done it, she really had sold him and…

But then the chestnut appeared and stared at her with his big dark eyes, almost as if he was asking her what was the problem.

“Oh, thank God,” Claire muttered. She put her arms around his neck and sank her face against his soft fur, breathing in his scent as her weak knees almost stopped supporting her weight. “Thank God…”

 _Leggers_ sniffed her clothes, trying to find out if she had brought a snack for him.

“I sold _Calypso_ and her filly.”

Claire startled at the voice and looked over her shoulder. Meg was standing on the stable’s doorway, looking at her with an unreadable expression.

“Why?” Claire asked. She wasn’t sure Meg understood her, because her voice came out as a trembling whisper, but her boss continued explaining anyway:

“Daphne made a good offer for the two of them. It made sense. _Calypso_ is much gentler and a filly that young will be easier to train to deal with the kind of people that go to their center. They will be fine.” Meg took a couple of confident strides until she was standing right next to Claire. “Besides, I couldn’t sell him.”

“Why?” Claire croaked again.

Meg shrugged. It was almost like she wanted Claire to figure out the answer for herself, but even though the panic had receded, her mind was still a little foggy with fear.

“This horse isn’t mine to sell, kid,” Meg said finally. “He hasn’t been mine for a while. He’s yours.”

Claire knew Meg didn’t mean that literally. She still could have sold _Leggers_ if she wanted or really needed to. But she hadn’t, because she understood how much the chestnut meant to Claire. It was a testament, proof that Meg really did care for her, and not just because she was with Castiel.

The realization was overwhelming, or maybe Claire just felt all around overwhelmed that day. In any case, Meg didn’t try to avoid it when Claire hugged her and she didn’t say a word when Claire started crying against her chest. She simply patted her hair and assured her it was okay over and over.

 

* * *

 

Daphne placed her bag inside of her trunk and closed it with a fluid movement.

“Well, thank you for everything,” she told Meg, stretching her hand to shake hers. “It’s been a wonderful weekend. You have a very beautiful place here.”

“Thanks to you,” Meg replied with a courteous smile. “I’m glad I met you. I know _Calypso_ and her filly are in good hands.”

“We’ll take good care of them,” Daphne promised. She made a pause and then asked: “Would you like me to send you pictures of them?”

“Please.”

She actually sounded relieved, like she had been meaning to ask for that, but she hadn’t known how to bring it up. Castiel suppressed a chuckle while the two women exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. However, his smile froze when Daphne turned to him. He still had the conversation they had that morning fresh in his mind and he knew by the twinkle in her eye, that she did too.

But she made no reference to it while she moved in to hug him.

“It was good to see you, too,” she said, patting him the cheek with a kind smile. “I’m happy you and Claire are doing so well.”

Castiel wasn’t sure what to answer to that. He could never, ever return the generosity Daphne had displayed towards him, not only during this weekend, but whenever she had been with him.

“Thank you for coming,” he replied clumsily.

“Drive safe,” Claire added and finally he could escape from Daphne’s gaze as she turned to say goodbye to his niece.

“Take care of your uncle, okay? Don’t let him eat too much ramen.”

“Well, there goes eighty percent of his diet,” Claire commented and then added before Castiel had time to say anything: “Kidding!”

“Do you want me to go with you to the gates?” Castiel offered as Daphne was already getting inside her car.

“No, it’s fine. Goodbye, Castiel.”

Daphne waved her hand at him before she turned around and headed for the exit. Castiel stared at the back of her head until she was too far away to make out in the dying winter light.

“Well…” Castiel started saying, but Meg interrupted him.

“Do you want to go out for a bite?”

Castiel blinked and turned to her, unsure if he had heard her correctly. But Meg had that decided look in her eyes and she was raising her chin the way she did when she was prepared to argue.

“I… out?” Castiel repeated, disconcerted. “You mean to… the Roadhouse or…?”

“Well, it’s basically the only restaurant in town, isn’t it?” Meg shrugged. “I don’t know. Just thought it would be nice.”

“No! I mean, yes,” Castiel stuttered. She still managed to completely catch him off guard. “But Andrea…”

“We’ll deal with Andrea later,” Meg replied simply.

“Oh. In that case…” Castiel slowly turned towards Claire, who was looking at them with a barely contained smile. “Do you want to…?”

“No way. If you’re gone, it means more of Andrea’s food for me,” she replied. “Besides, I have homework. And even if I didn’t, I can’t think of something I want to do _less_ than being a third wheel on your date.”

And with that, she turned around and walked away with Bilbo trotting behind her.

“It’s not… it’s not a date,” Castiel said. “Is it?”

“Do you want it to be?” Meg asked, arching an eyebrow.

It was a question Castiel wasn’t sure he was ready to answer. If it was a date, if Meg really was agreeing to be seen in public with him, dating, that was a big step, a compromise he hadn’t been expecting from her at all. And if it wasn’t… well, he didn’t want to be disappointed. He had told Meg he didn’t care if she loved him back, but there was still a part of him that couldn’t help but hoping…

He shut those thoughts off as they walked into the Roadhouse. It was a Monday, which meant there wasn’t much people there except for a few regulars. He spotted Bobby Singer drinking by the bar and laughing with Ellen and a few other people from around the town he didn’t know all that well. Most of them didn’t pay attention to them, but Castiel thought he saw some heads turning in their direction.

Meg didn’t notice or care. She approached Jo, who was cleaning a table, and asked her for a booth with a little bit of privacy. Jo was taken aback, but she guided them down to one and took their orders right there. Meg asked for a salad, while Castiel settled for one of Ellen’s cheeseburgers. He looked over his shoulder as their waitress walked away and noticed more people stretching their neck and trying to peek into their booth.

“This is… odd,” he commented.

“You were the one who wanted to go out somewhere,” Meg reminded him, with a shrug.

“So it is a date?”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

Castiel was about to ask how exactly he was expected to do that, but Jo returned with their drinks right then. He took a long swig from his soda, trying to put his thoughts in order, watching Meg over the edge of his can. She didn’t look entirely too comfortable with that setting, with her shoulders rigid and her eyes avoiding him, but she recovered quickly. She raised her chin and took a deep breath.

“Actually, I brought you here for a reason,” she announced. “There was something… I had been thinking about for a while and well, I figured this was as good a time as any to ask you.”

“Okay.” Castiel nodded, cautiously, inviting her to continue.

Meg took her time. She toyed with her water and shifted in her seat. When she spoke, it was like she had rehearsed every word, but she still had trouble forcing them out:

“I was thinking that you and the kid should move in. Into the main house, I mean.”

Again, it took Castiel a few seconds to react. For one, because just like the date, he didn’t really believe it. His first and most terrible thought was that she was playing some sort of cruel prank on him.

“What?”

“It just makes sense.” Meg shrugged. It was as if now that it was out there, she could talk with more ease. “It’s more comfortable than the cabin. You and I could take up the main room, Claire could sleep in mine. She would have her own bathroom, which I’m sure she’ll appreciate…”

“Meg, stop.” Castiel shook his head. “Do you…? Are you serious?”

“Like a heart attack.” She smirked. The tension had finally left her, or maybe she found Castiel’s confusion amusing.

“Here’s your order,” Jo said, in a peppy voice that completely crashed with the mood in the table. “Anything else I can bring you?”

Castiel could barely look at her, much less mutter a thank you. Meg continued to stare at him, waiting for an answer. So finally, Jo gave up and left them to their food. Meg grabbed the salt and started seasoning her salad as if she just hadn’t shifted the entire paradigm of their relationship. Again.

“You wound me, Clarence,” she said, after a few more seconds of awkward silence. “I thought you’d be happier about this. You’re the one who got all serious and shit first.”

“This is because of what I said?” Castiel managed to ask finally. “Because I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want you to do anything about it. Like I told you, I wasn’t expecting you to…”

Meg stretched her hand over the table and grabbed his, shutting him up instantly.

“It isn’t because of what you said,” she clarified. “Well, it is. A little bit. But it’s also about me, kind of. It’s complicated.”

Castiel tilted his head and patiently waited for her to explain. Meg opened her mouth, closed again, smiled as if there was a joke Castiel wasn’t getting and finally spoke:

“Look, I like you. A lot. I like us, I like how this feels. I like going to bed with you and I like waking up with you. And… I don’t know if I love you. But since you do love me, I’m thinking we might as well go all in for it. Not more tiptoeing around.”

“Huh,” Castiel muttered. “That doesn’t sound that complicated.”

Her hand was still on top of his. He grabbed it and took it to his mouth to leave a peck over her knuckles. Her skin was warm and soft. The shock was wearing off, and a warm, fuzzy sensation was expanding through his chest as he slowly realized she did mean it. She really was willing to try. For him.

“Okay, but I’m gonna take it back if you’re going to smile like a fool about it,” Meg protested. “Castiel, I mean it. Wipe it off. People are going to talk…”

Castiel slid next to her in the booth, put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a kiss. Meg placed her hand on his cheek, but she kissed him back, nibbling his lower lip and leaning into him, her hand grabbing a handful of his shirt. When they broke apart, her cheeks were a lovely shade of red and her hair was a mess from where Castiel had petted it.

“Well.” She chuckled. “They’re definitely going to talk now.”


	32. Half a Victory

The hooves thundered on the ground, almost resonating on Castiel’s stomach as much as the voice from the announcer. He had made the terrible decision of sitting too close to one of the speakers, and now every word boomed inside his skull as he tried to follow _Morningstar_ with his eyes.

“… _Dusty Benji_ is losing his advantage against _Morningstar the Third_ … now _Lady Rowena_ catches up to them, but _Morningstar the Third_ doesn’t let up… they’re both on the lead… they’re going for the final stretch. It seems like it’ll be head to head… but _Lady Rowena_ takes the lead, quickly leaves _Morningstar_ behind and… _Lady Rowena_ wins by a furlong!”

The crowd in the Aqueduct cheered and screamed, drowning out Castiel’s loud cursing as he began to climb down the grades. How could this happen? Why was this happening? They had the fastest horse and Meg was the best jockey. How come they had lost their last few races? How come they had lost the Gotham Stakes when they were the favorites according to every analysis he had read?

Almost as if his thoughts had invoked her, Ruby caught up to him near the track.

“Well, that’s two out of three for my girl,” she told him with a wide, satisfied grin. “And is it me or are you just getting slower?”

Castiel stared at her and Ruby burst into laughter.

“I’m joking!” she said, punching him in the shoulder as if she was allowed to do that. As if they were _friends_. “Come on. You ran a great race.”

Castiel managed to force his mouth into what he hoped looked remotely like a friendly smile and not a grimace of the fury that was turning his stomach in a knot.

“Yes. Thank you. Perhaps the next one will go to _Morningstar_.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Ruby walked away before Castiel had a chance to reply. In any case, what could he say? “Yes, we would like that very much”?

As he walked towards Meg, the announcer kept giving the bad news.

“Let’s remember that _Morningstar_ had a stellar beginning of the season, winning among other races the Breeder’s Cup. But with this latest lose, will he still be eligible to run on the Kentucky Derby?”

“Well, Davey, it’s hard to tell…”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Meg muttered when Castiel was close enough to hear her. Though, given the fact she had her back turn to him, Castiel assumed she wasn’t talking to him. He put a hand on her shoulder and gently try to calm down his own anger to deal with hers.

“Meg, it’s okay,” he told her. “We still have all the points we got at the beginning. We can still…”

Meg shook her head.

“I’m not even thinking about the Derby right now,” she clarified and threw a bitter glare to where Ruby and her jockey were giving an interview and receiving their awards. “Why does she keep showing up to steal the races from us?”

Castiel wasn’t sure if she meant the horse or Ruby. But either way, he was wondering the same thing.

 

* * *

 

Andrea had baked them a cake for their return.

“Hey! Welcome home!” she greeted them with a smile, even though she knew (she had to know) that both Meg and Castiel were in a foul mood. Andrea still held up the cake to them and smiled. “You want to try a piece? It has no sugar, but it’s still sweet.”

“I’ll have a piece,” Claire decided. “It’ll be good to have something sweet to counteract these two’s bitterness.”

“Don’t eat too much before dinner,” Castiel scolded her, but it lacked any strength.

Meg sat on a chair and placed her chin on the palm of her hand. Castiel looked at Benny, who shrugged as if to indicate he didn’t know how he could help with this one and announced he was going to take the bags upstairs. Castiel sat between Meg and Claire, who was happily attacking the piece of cake with a fork and a knife.

“What are you plotting?”

“Why do you think I’m plotting something?” Meg asked, still with her eyes in the distance.

“You have your plotting face on,” Castiel pointed out.

At least that managed to bring a smile to her lips.

“Oh, and aren’t you just so familiar with my plotting face?” she asked, teasingly.

“Well, I do like looking at your face.”

“Can you guys like, not? I’m eating,” Claire scoffed.

Meg chuckled and Castiel stretched his hand to grab hers.

“Listen, Meg. Even if we don’t win the Memorial, we’ll still be in the Derby. We have the points…”

“But we won’t be the favorite,” Meg pointed out, frustration returning to her gesture.

“That doesn’t matter when you’re in the track.”

“But it does matter to possible investors,” she pointed out. “Goddammit, I shouldn’t have waited this long to start pimping out _Morningstar_. Now nobody is going to want him to sire their foals.”

“It’s kinda tragic that he needs to win races in order to get laid,” Claire pointed out.

“Well, not exactly. Usually the sperm is extracted and taken to wherever the mare is…”

“So the horse only gets a handy? That’s rough,” Claire said, shaking her head as if it was the saddest thing she’d ever heard.

Meg looked at her for a few seconds, and then, almost despite herself, she burst into laughter. It was a relief to see how the clouds in her face disappeared, even though Castiel knew they could return at any moment. He didn’t even scold Claire for her language, instead quickly trying to come up with a solution for her troubles.

“We have the Cuevas’ number. We can call them up, see if they’re still interested. Maybe you can convince them to share the foal’s ownership…”

“No.” Meg cringed and shook her head. “I never do that. My grandfather said that having half a horse meant having half the victory…”

“Meg, the way things are right now, half a victory will still be a victory.”

He didn’t meant to be so blunt, but she knew he was right. Even though the situation wasn’t as dire as it had been the previous summer and they continued to train _Leggers_ , with _Calypso_ and her filly gone, the ranch only had one broodmare left and one horse to race in next season. Everything they were doing right now was just a temporary patch. Morningstar was just too big a ranch to depend on a single horses’ victory. Living from race to race wasn’t going to be sustainable in the long run, so Meg needed to either invest in horses that she could own partially or buy more mare and hire another jockey.

And if that meant having to swallow her pride and do things different than her grandfather, well… she needed to come to terms to that.

And by the way Meg was glaring at him, it was easy to tell she didn’t need him to explain this to her.

She tapped her fingers against the table, her mouth twisted in a pensive look.

“Fine. We’ll call the Cuevas,” she agreed in the end. “But if I don’t like their conditions, the deal is cancelled.”

She stood up and walked out of the kitchen, the way she did when she wanted to have the last word.

Claire popped the last of her cake in her mouth.

“Let me tell you, I’m glad the walls in this place are thick. I’m only kidding!” she added when Castiel simply glared at her.

 

* * *

 

Claire did have a point, despite Castiel’s best efforts to pretend otherwise. When he accepted to move into the main house the previous month, he was exulting, since it meant he would get to see more of Meg, spend more time with her and go to sleep by her side every single night. He hadn’t considered the fact it also meant more of Meg’s moodiness, more of her sarcasm and more of her ability to be fully awake and functional at the crack of dawn, when he still had some troubles distinguishing dream from reality.

And also, that he had become the unofficial ambassador of having to retrieve her when she was throwing a tantrum.

He considered knocking on the door for a moment before he realized that, even though he kept thinking of this as “Meg’s house”, he also lived there and this was his room as well. He still pushed the door very softly and popped his head in first to get an idea of the situation inside.

“Meg?” he called out. “Andrea wants to know if you’ll be coming down for dinner.”

Meg didn’t seem to hear him. She also clearly didn’t have the same concerns about keeping their belongings separated, because he caught her (and not for the first time) in the middle of the bed with his computer on her lap. She had a frown of concentration in her face as she read whatever it was on the screen.

“Meg?” he called her again, fully stepping in now.

It was still kind of surreal to think he was living there now, especially because there were boxes and unpacked bags scattered around. Some were his, but most were Meg’s. She had moved out her things from what was now Claire’s room, but according to her, she still couldn’t put them in place because she didn’t know what she was going to need and what she could store away in the attic. However, when Castiel brought the possibility of helping her out, she dismissed him and told him she would get around to it eventually. So even though it was slightly bigger than Meg’s old room, the space still looked a bit cluttered and he had to step around the piles to reach the bed.

According to Benny, the “main room” had always been the room that the de facto leader of the ranch occupied. First it had been Meg’s grandfather’s, then her father’s, and then Tom and Ruby’s while they still were married. Castiel could see why: it had a picture window above the enormous bed’s headboard from where one could see the green fields of the property and the bathroom had a bathtub that was big enough for two people (he and Meg had discovered that the night after he officially moved in). The beige paper wall with a fleur of lis pattern was a bit antiquated and Meg had determined they would have to get rid of it at some unspecified point in the future. But for now, she still only opened her boxes whenever she needed something from it.

Maybe Meg’s reluctance had to with the room’s history. Maybe it was hard for her to assume that she was now the head of the ranch, even though she had been technically doing that job for a year and a half now. Castiel wanted to believe it was a sign of that, instead of her instantly regretting inviting him to live with her.

Meg blinked and raised her head at him. Her features softened a little.

“Oh, hey. Didn’t hear you come in,” she said, closing the computer. She scuttled and left it on the left night table, but she made no attempts at getting up. Castiel assumed she was expecting him to sit by her side, so he went ahead and did just that.

“What were you reading?” he asked.

“I was trying to find some info about _Lady Rowena_. In all of the races she’s won, the owner or the owners never showed up. Doesn’t that look a bit suspicious to you?”

“Perhaps,” Castiel said, cautiously. “Or perhaps you are… overthinking this.”

“I’m not,” Meg replied, clicking her tongue with annoyance. “We keep running into Ruby. That’s weird.”

“Or maybe whoever owns _Rowena_ lives at the other end of the country and doesn’t show up because of a… geographical inconvenience,” he offered. “And maybe you’re obsessing over this because once again, you’re letting your worries get to you.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Meg groaned, but she wasn’t mad. She smiled softly and put a hand on Castiel’s knee and stared pensively at him until Castiel felt a shiver going down his spine.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I wonder about you,” Meg commented. “Don’t you ever get tired of dealing with me?”

The question took him aback. Meg had always been so unapologetically her that Castiel had always assume that his opinion of her was hardly relevant, the way their relationship had changed notwithstanding. He softly ran her fingers down the back of her hand and her wrist, pondering on how to answer that.

"It can be exhausting," he admitted, because Meg would se right through him if he even thought about lying to her. "But when you chose someone, you take the bad with the good." He stretched his hand and placed it on her cheek. "And honestly, I'd much rather be exhausted by your side than content at anyone else's."

Meg held his gaze for a few seconds, before she chuckled and shook her head.

"You are an incorrigible sap."

"I like to think of myself as a hopeless romantic," he corrected her. "So, about dinner...?"

"Yeah." She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stretched her arms above her head. "We better hurry before that bottomless pit of yours eats everything up."

 

* * *

 

The following week saw a great influx of people into Morningstar. Well, it was actually no more than four visitors, but for the quiet, isolated ranch, that seemed like an invasion second only to all the teenagers that had showed up for the Winter Formal.

The Cuevas arrived first, in an ugly beat up truck that had seen better days. Castiel stretched his hand towards Cesar, only to be pulled in for a strong bear hug.

"So glad you called!" he said, as he did the exact same thing to Meg. "Jesse, here, was telling me that we should give up on waiting by the phone, but I told him that you were probably just busy with all the races."

Jesse, much more subdued, did shake their hands, and although he was cordial, Castiel got the feeling he was being a little cold towards them. He tilted is head backwards and took a look at the house, whistling impressed.

"So this is the famous Morningstar," he commented. "Very nice place."

"Thank you. My grandfather had a knack for house building," Meg commented. "Please, come on in. Our lawyer will be here in about an hour, so we have time for lunch."

"Ours should be coming soon, too," Cesar commented, checking his phone. "Sorry, Guy sometimes couldn't find his own head if he didn't have it glued to his neck."

"That's not a good thing to brag about your lawyer," Meg pointed out. "Mine's an old white dude that has dealt with my family's business for generations. He could take advantage of your guy easily."

"It would be fun to watch him try," Jesse said, with a smile that was all teeth and no warmth.

Castiel was actually a bit taken aback by the undercurrent aggression in all that exchange and it must have shown in his face, because Cesar took one look at him and burst into laughter.

"You're new to this, aren't you trainer?" he said, patting him in the back so hard that Castiel almost stumbled and fell down on his face. "It's just a bit of friendly competition between us people in the circuit. All in good fun."

Jesse and Meg laughed as well, but Castiel had the impression they were forcing it somewhat. The conversation while they ate revolved around everybody's common interest: horses and the best way to take care of them.

"This is _Dancing Rain_ ," Cesar said, taking out his phone to show them a picture like a proud father shows his kid's pictures to his coworkers. "She is a beauty and she can run like a motherfucker, pardon my French."

The mare was, in fact, very beautiful looking, with chestnut hair stained here and there by patches of white that almost resembled small clouds. Castiel figured that had been what gave her the name. She was standing on a field next to a black girl brushing her who, the Cuevas explained, was named Patience and was their jockey.

Meg narrowed her eyes a little bit when she was presented with the picture.

"What's her current speed?" she asked. "Do you have a video? And excuse me for asking, but if she is so fast, how come we haven't seen her in the circuit in these past few months?"

The smile vanished from Cesar's face, while Jesse stuck up his chin, as if he knew that this question was coming and he was more than ready to answer it.

"She hurt herself," he explained. "Broken ligaments. The vet wanted to put her down, but we could never do that. So we decided that if she can't run, maybe her children can."

Meg nodded and changed the subject to how taste Andrea's desert was, but Castiel knew she was taking careful note of this information.

The lawyers showed up an hour after lunch, with their briefcases and suits that seemed terribly out of place against the flannels and jeans everyone else was wearing. Aside from that, the two men couldn't be more different. Meg's lawyer was, as she had anticipated, a tall white man with gray hair and a beard that gave his elongated face a somewhat sinister aspect. His smile was so slimy it sent a shiver down Castiel's spine.

Meg, however, hugged him as if he was an old friend.

"Alistair! It's so good to see you!"

"So good to see you too, child," Alistair replied with a nasal drawl and turned his beady grey eyes to Castiel. "And very nice to meet you, Mr. Novak," he said, shaking his hand so hard it almost felt like he was trying to crush Castiel's bones.

"Please, call me Castiel."

"And you can call me Alistair, then," he replied. "Been following your progress in the latest races. You seem to be doing right by the ranch. Dear Old Az would have approved of you."

Castiel had never stopped to think about that. Since the ranch was practically Meg's, he figured it was only her opinion that matter when it came to his work as a trainer. But when it came to the other aspect of their relationship...

"Before we go into this negotiation, I'd like to talk to you about something, Meg."

Meg eyed the Cuevas, who were having coffee in the living room, and very discreetly closed the main door so she, Castiel and Alistair were isolated in the porch.

"You can speak freely," she said. "Castiel knows all about the ranch's current state."

If that seemed odd to Alistair, he showed no signs of it.

"If you were going to buy half a victory, girl, you could have at least chosen someone who was guaranteed to give you as much," he told her. He made it sound like a teacher who was scolding his favorite pupil for disappointing him. "The Cuevas' ranch is tiny, they haven't won any major race, their star filly slipped and got injured during her last appearance..."

"Alistair, I know. I did my homework," Meg interrupted him. "Believe me, I know what my grandfather would think about me making business with these guys."

"And you're still going to go ahead with it?" Alistair asked, as if Luc Masters' influence and opinion was supposed to sway Meg from beyond the grave.

Meg crossed her arms over her chest.

"They are the only ones who have expressed interest in having _Morningstar_ sire a foal for them. Most of the others are probably waiting to see how we do in the Kentucky Derby."

"That's another thing," Alistair pointed out. "I told you it was a bad idea to put all your hopes in this horse. If he doesn't do as well as you're expecting..."

"He will," Meg said curtly and Castiel couldn't hold back his smile. Despite all the setbacks, despite all the times Castiel had seen her doubt herself and her performance, she remained blindly confident about Morningstar's ability to win. She was still wholly convinced that he was a champion. And if she believed it, well, that was enough for Castiel.

Alistair realized that line of reasoning wasn't going to take him anywhere so he changed tactics.

"Does Tom know about this little... investment you're about to make?"

"I've emailed him." Meg shrugged. "What does it matter? I can sign for the both of us."

"You can, but if your brother isn't fully on board..."

"Let me worry about Tom," Meg cut Alistair off again. "You're here to get me the best possible deal and I expect you will do just that."

She turned her back on them, signaling the conversation was over, and confidently strutted back inside the ranch. Alistair let out a long, suffering sigh.

"She has her grandfather's spirit," he commented.

Guy, the Cuevas' lawyer (Did all lawyers just insisted people call them by their first name to lull them into a false sense of security and made them forget the reasons they were really there?), was a young, black man, with a sprightly demeanor and a smile just as slimy as Alistair’s. He complimented Andrea on her coffee and Meg on her house before he opened up his briefcase and extracted a stack of papers.

"This is the standard contract we're offering," he explained. "You will be paid for providing the sperm and will be awarded twenty five percent ownership of the resulting foal."

"I'm afraid that won't do," Alastair replied. "My client is asking for fifty percent of ownership."

The Cuevas' faces changed ever so slightly. Cesar looked taken aback, surprised, but Jesse scoffed. It sounded as if he was expecting exactly that kind of mood.

Guy, however, didn't let his smile drop.

"May I ask why your client thinks she's entitled to that?"

"Well, basic biology indicates that fifty percent of the resulting foal won't exist without the fifty percent my client's stallion will be providing," Alastair pointed out with a condescending shrug. "So my client is only asking for her fair share."

Guy raised his eyebrows, as if he was suddenly understanding something important and leaned back down on his armchair. He chuckled.

"Is there something funny?"

"There is, actually," Guy said. "You will excuse my bluntness, but your client doesn't have the right to ask for anything when my clients are practically doing her a favor. Morningstar might have been a very important ranch in the past, but their victories have been barely worth mentioning in recent years. As for the stallion in question..."

Meg shifted in her chair and Castiel quickly put a hand on her knee to keep her in her place. He knew she was sensitive when it came to people talking about her horse in those terms, but she needed to keep her cool if they wanted this negotiation to turn out fine.

"... he's had some very impressive victories at the beginning of this season, but lately, he has been slacking a little. Maybe we should ask if _Lady Rowena_ has a brother."

"Maybe we should ask the same thing about your mare," Alastair shot back without missing a beat. "Because as I understand it, my client could be investing in fifty percent chances of broken ligaments."

"That was an accident!" Jesse snapped. His face was red and his fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were knight. "There's nothing wrong with _Rain_! She's perfectly healthy! We brought you all the papers!"

"Dear..." Cesar muttered, putting a hand on her husband arm to calm him down.

"Maybe we should have a second opinion on that," Alastair commented. "Have our own expert take a look at her..."

"Oh, cut the bullshit, Alistair. We don't have time for this," Meg interrupted him. Alastair stared at her, with eyes wide open.

"Meg, I advise you to leave this to me..."

"And I advise you to shut the fuck up if you want me to keep consulting with you," Meg said and immediately turned to the Cuevas. "Look, all of this posturing and pretending than one of us is better than the other isn't going to take us anywhere. Yes, my ranch is failing..."

"Meg..."

"... but yours is barely even getting off the ground. You know how many breeders go into bankruptcy in their first two years?"

Jesse and Cesar remained in bleak silence. They clearly knew exactly that the numbers were just as against them as they were against Meg.

"The bottom line of this is that we need each other," she continued. "I need to keep the ranch afloat so _Morningstar_ can run and win the way I know he's capable of. You need a new horse to compete in the next season and if you make it a good one, you'll have plenty of investors that will be interested in you. Especially if they know you have a descendant from a Kentucky Derby champion."

"You're certainly very confident, Miss Masters, and that's admirable," Guy started, trying to regain control of the conversation. "But my clients..."

"Your clients will have to do the rest," Meg cut him off again. "Yes, a good breed is important. But having a good trainer and a good jockey, a good team around the horse, counts just as much to make a champion. Can you guarantee that you will provide this foal with that?"

"Can you guarantee that you will win the Kentucky Derby?" Jesse shot back.

Meg simply smirked at him and raised her chin with pride. Castiel figured this was as good a time as any to intervene.

"Look, I know it seems risky," he started. "But I also know Meg and I know she doesn't go into these things blindly. She believed _Morningstar_ could be a champion, even when I saw nothing but a stubborn and aggressive horse. Her lawyer obviously doesn't see a good deal here..."

“I’ll say,” Alistair commented.

“But she does. And Meg’s gut hasn’t failed me yet.”

Meg glanced at him silently and squeezed the hand he had on her knee while they waited for the Cuevas’ response. Castiel wasn’t sure what that meant, but he figured he must have done something right for Meg to look so please.

The Cuevas exchanged a long look, with Cesar raising his eyebrows while Jesse rubbed his beard.

“Meet in the middle?” Cesar offered at the end. “How about thirty five percent?”

“Forty percent,” Meg said. “And that’s as low as I’m willing to go.”

Cesar looked at Jesse again. He clearly was happy with this result, but he wasn’t going to say anything without his husband’s approval.

After a few seconds of hesitation, Jesse nodded.

“Fine. Forty percent. But you better win the damn Derby, do you hear me?”

Meg’s grin was exulting.

“I intend to.”

 

* * *

 

Meg and Jesse were soon caught up in what could described as a thrilling conversation about what they expected from each other, while Alastair and Guy furiously took notes. After a while, Castiel got up to stretch his legs and so did Cesar. He gave him a look and pointed towards the kitchen. The other four people were so busy arguing Castiel was willing to bet they didn’t even see them scurrying away.

Cesar burst into laughter as soon as they were alone.

“This girl of yours is a tough cookie, isn’t she?”

Castiel smile involuntarily while he opened the fridge. It was the first time that someone referred to Meg as “his girl” and even though he was sure she would bemoan that to hell and back, he couldn’t help the warm feeling that he got in his chest.

“I get it. My Jesse’s the same,” Cesar commented. He gladly received the beer Castiel handed to him and opened it up with his own keychain. “Took ages for me to get him to open up.”

“Yeah. I’m not sure I’ve got there just yet,” Castiel commented. Cesar laughed again, cheerfully.

“Between you and me, he does like your horse. The moment he saw it, he went ‘Wouldn’t he make a good match for our _Rain_?’. Ignore all his crankiness. He also knows a good deal when he sees one.” He took a swig of his beer and after a few seconds, he admitted: “He did get a little nervous when this _Lady Rowena_ showed up in the scene, though.”

Castiel’s ears perked up. On one hand, he shouldn’t be indulging Meg’s paranoia, but on the other…

“Do you know who her owner is?” Castiel asked. “Meg used to work with _Rowena_ ’s current trainer, but she hasn’t been able to find out…”

Cesar shrugged and Castiel felt really stupid for asking. Of course, at the end of the day, it really didn’t matter. All that matter was to find a way to get _Morningstar_ to run faster than her…

“Word of mouth says he’s some newcomer,” Cesar told him. “One of those guys that has more money than he knows how to do with, you know? Some fellow named Crowley.”


	33. Bad Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter deals with issues of sexual assault and homophobia. The paragraph where the description of the assault itself ocurrs will be put in italics so you can skip it if you'd like.

April almost sneaked up on them, with longer and warmer days coming earlier than anticipated. Ben once again argued that global warming was out of control, Claire pointed it could be some sort of alien gravitational forced that had pulled the earth out of its orbit and now humankind was barreling directly into the sun. Alexis laughed but also pointed out that Claire had a morbid imagination.

“We’re millenials,” Claire replied. “Hoping to be launched into the sun before we have to become productive members of society is the best we can strive for.”

“Before prom would be preferable.” Ben cringed and pointed behind them. Krissy was hanging a poster in the cafeteria’s wall right behind them, reminding everyone to buy their prom tickets.

“Oh, come on!” Claire protested. “That’s like still a month away!”

“I wonder where they’re holding it,” Alexis added. “The gym was supposed to be done by now, but it got delayed because of budget restrictions. I heard Principal Sanders is thinking about launching a Kickstarter.”

“What would it be for?” Claire asked. “Send us four dollars and we’ll kill your child’s spirit for you?”

For someone who claimed to find Claire’s humor “morbid”, Alexis did laugh at a lot of her nihilistic jokes. Which only prompted Claire to keep making them, because Alexis’ laughter was literally the high point of her day.

She was way in over her head here.

“We’re going, aren’t we?” Alexis asked next. “I mean, all of u, together. Like we did with the Winter Formal.”

Ben and Claire exchanged a look and Alexis cringed, almost as if she was only now realizing that the Winter Formal experiment had ended with the three of them not talking to each other for a month or so. Luckily, before any of them had time to point that out, the bell rang, announcing lunch time was over.

“We’ll… think about it,” Claire said, without compromising. “I mean, you know I’m not a big fan of dancing and large crowds.”

Alexis looked disappointed but wisely decided not to comment on it. The said goodbye to each other on their way out of the cafeteria and Alexis headed out to her Advanced Biology class. Because she was going to be a great doctor and do some good for humanity one day while Claire and Ben ended up stuck somewhere asking people if they would like fries with that. If they were lucky.

“You should ask her,” Ben said, interrupting Claire’s gloomy thoughts about the future.

“What?”

For a second she thought it was another of Ben’s tasteless jokes, but he seemed entirely too serious.

“You should ask Alexis to go to prom with you,” Ben clarified. “Not as friends.”

Claire actually stopped on her tracks to stare at him, open-mouthed.

“What?” he asked, with a shrug.

“First of all, keep your voice down,” Claire whispered. “I don’t want the entire school to find out. And second, yeah, right. What makes you think she will say yes?”

“What makes you think she will say no?”

“Uh… the fact that she’s not into girls?”

“How do you know?” Ben asked, but then eyes widened. “Is that like, a gaydar thing? I didn’t think that was real.”

Claire scoffed at him and pretending to be very busy opening her locker so he didn’t have to see how furiously she was blushing.

“Listen, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to do it.”

“Why not? You like her. When you like someone, you ask them out,” Ben insisted. “You’ll never know if you never try. Honestly, at this point, I’m thinking I’m a better lesbian than you are.”

His smile indicated that he was joking, but the glare Claire threw at him made it vanish instantly.

“Is that one of those slightly homophobic things I shouldn’t say?”

“Yes,” she groaned. “We’re late to class.”

She walked away briskly. Ben had to trot to catch up.

“Okay, sorry. But I really think you should do it.”

“This conversation is over,” Claire declared as they reached the classroom’s door.

“Fine, we’ll leave it for now,” Ben agreed. “But it’s far from over, Claire Novak.”

He made it sound ominous and funny at the same time, and even though Claire was trying really hard to stay mad at him, she couldn’t choke back a chuckle.

“Ah.” Ben pointed at her with her pen. “Made you laugh.”

He didn’t bring it up for the rest of the afternoon, but the matter still buzzed inside of Claire’s brain. Or at least, around the stupidly gay part of it, the part that made her think maybe she had a chance, maybe this would be a good idea. Yeah, maybe Alexis would say no or she would think she was inviting her platonically, but dammit, Ben was right. Shouldn’t she take her chances? Shouldn’t she try at all?

The answer her rational part had was no, she shouldn’t. Because she knew Alexis liked boys. In fact, there was no way to know if she was even over her crush on Ben. Maybe Ben should ask Alexis to go to the prom. He was a good guy, after all, and Claire would be happy for her two best friends and not jealous at all, because if Alexis had to date someone, it was best if it was Ben. He had been a champion through all of this, accepting her with open arms and keeping her secret, occasional insensitive gay joke notwithstanding. And Claire could be single and bitter the rest of her life, having the consolation of knowing that at least the girl she loved ( _oh, shit, that was kind of a strong word…_ ) and her best friend were happy together.

She wondered why the hell she had to be such a fatalist, but some days it was inevitable.

Even though she was having an overall good day. She had got another A in her English class. She was still barely passing Algebra and she didn’t think anyone would mistake her for a native Spanish speaker any time soon, but at least her prospects weren’t as grim as they had been at the beginning of the year.

Which reminded her, maybe she should start sending applications to colleges. She still had all the pamphlets she had collected at her old school (at the very least, she didn’t remember throwing them away) so maybe she should give them another look and start thinking about how to go about this whole “future” thing, because she really couldn’t sit around and wait for the Earth to be launched into the Sun…

“Hey, dyke!”

The shout came from the other side of the parking lot and immediately froze her in her spot. She knew that voice meant trouble and she immediately wished she could have gathered herself enough to keep walking and get into her car. She still had to take Ben and Alexis home, but goddammit, she had to get away. She had to…

Henry was on her face before she had time to react.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” he said, his nose scrunched up in a gesture of pure fury. “You think you can just get to Alexis and make her like you?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Claire asked. She was proud of how firm her voice came out, but her eyes shifted everywhere. Henry had come without his goons this time, but that didn’t make him any less terrifying. Not when he looked so ready to hurt her, not when he was once again voicing the kind of thoughts that came from the darkest alleys of Claire’s mind.

“She said she was going to prom with you!” Henry accused her, wagging a finger in front of her.

Something awoke in Claire’s guts, hot and white and so sudden it surprised even her. Rationally, she knew Alexis must have said that she was going with Claire _and_ with Ben, but that wasn’t what Henry’s jealous obsessive mind had heard. But even if that was the truth, so what? Why did this guy kept showing up and ruining Claire’s day? What right did he have to be such an asshole to her? Alexis was no longer dating him and she had a right to go to prom with whoever the hell she wanted. What did Henry expect her to do about it?

“And what if she is?” she replied, displaying her teeth in what she hoped was a mocking smile. “What if she’s coming with me? Maybe she’ll have more fun. And you know what? Maybe it was you. Maybe you were such an awful dick that you turned her off men forever…”

Henry did something Claire wasn’t prepared for: he raised his hands and pushed her. Claire staggered backwards and thumped into her car. She wasn’t hurt, not really, but she was stunned enough that she didn’t know how to react when Henry took a step and corralled her.

“Listen to me,” he growled. “You’re not going to turn her into a freak pervert like you. I’m not going to let you!”

“Hey! Leave her alone, you asshole!”

A hand clasped Henry by the shoulder and pulled him back. If Henry hadn’t been so distracted trying to terrify Claire, Ben would have never managed to move him, but he counted with the element of surprise. Henry turned around, focusing his glare on Ben and let out an ugly laugh.

“What do you think you can do, eh, Braeden? Why you want to defend her? Maybe you’re like her, huh?” He raised his hands and pushed Ben back. “Maybe you’re a faggot too!”

Ben didn’t respond to Henry’s provocations, mainly because he didn’t have any time.

“What are you kids doing?” Mr. Phelps screamed. “Are you fighting?”

Claire’s mind suddenly unfroze from the panic that was keeping her rooted to her spot and started racing. The last time she had gone up against Henry and her father, Principal Sanders had been on the verge of suspending her too. The only reason she didn’t go ahead was because Meg had outright bribed her. This time, nor Meg nor her uncle were there to help her out and if Mr. Phelps said something…

“Get in the car,” she said, and then louder: “Get in the car!”

Ben didn’t hesitate. He opened the door and lunged himself inside at the same time Claire did the same thing on the driver’s seat. She turned the key to the ignition so hard she was surprised not to hear it break. A second later, they were out on the street,.

Ben was the first to calm down.

“Claire, wait. Where are we going? Claire, we left Alexis… you should slow down…”

It was like hearing his words from somewhere underwater, far away where they couldn’t reach her or they couldn’t make sense of her. She just needed to get away from the school, away from Henry and away from his voice saying out loud every single bad thing Claire already thought about herself.

“Claire!”

The scream and the honk came at the same time. The Maverick stopped abruptly as another car rolled down the street, still honking at them and (Claire imagined) swearing at these teenagers that drove so carelessly.

“Claire, hey,” Benny said, in a lower tone. He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed until Claire looked at him. “Listen, why don’t you park? You’re… I don’t think you should be driving right now.”

He was right. Her hands were trembling and she was making a great effort just to keep on breathing. As slowly as she could, she moved the Maverick to the side of the street and let the engine die.

“There,” Ben said. “Are you feeling…?”

Claire burst into tears. She didn’t mean and there was certain an element of humiliation of breaking down like that, of knowing she had let the panic dictate her actions. Again.

“Sorry,” she muttered, but she doubted Ben could understand her with how much she was sobbing, so she forced herself to breathe in and repeated: “Sorry. I just… I hate that word.”

“Dyke? I mean, that’s not a nice thing to call someone, but… woah, okay!” he added when Claire started crying even harder. “Okay, I’m sorry. Sorry. Hey, come here.” He put his arms around her and pulled her in for a hug. “It’s okay. It’s just a word, Claire. It can’t hurt you.”

It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. Claire sank her face in his shoulder and cried out until she found enough strength to explain:

“You don’t understand. It’s what _he_ called me.”

“Who’s he? Henry?”

Claire shook her head and withdrew from the hug.

“Salinger.”

She didn’t like saying his name. She didn’t even like to think about him. She hated that he still had so much power over her despite the time and the distance. But she couldn’t help it.

“The guy who wrote _Guardian in the Rice_?”

“In the rye,” Claire corrected him, automatically.

“Yeah, I’ll take your word for it. I wrote my essay on it with the Wikipedia article.”

Despite the circumstances, that managed to bring out a strangled chuckle from her.

“He was our neighbor, when we lived in New York,” Claire explained. “He lived across the hall from us. He… he didn’t like me.”

“Because you’re a lesbian?”

That would be the simplest way to put it. He didn’t like her because he was a pervert freak. He didn’t like her because Claire was trying to provoke him by doing something as simple as wearing short. Claire hated crossing her path with him on the hall or the elevator, because he would always give her this sideway glance that made her sick to her stomach, like he was measuring her. Like he was trying to determine her value. He’ never said anything except for some curtly “Good morning” or “Good afternoon”, but sometimes Claire had caught him staring as if he wanted to say something else.

She wasn’t the only one who noticed. The friends who visited her in the apartment also saw it.

“I don’t like the way he stares,” Magda had told her once. “It’s creepy. Maybe we should meet in my house.”

“Yeah, right. And have your mom try to exorcise the gay out of us?” Claire had replied. They were lying in her bed, over the covers, supposedly studying, but the upcoming Calculus exam was the furthest thing from her mind. “Well, maybe that would be fun, though. Can you imagine her face?”

“Don’t even say it!” Magda had said, with what Claire knew now was genuine terror in her voice. Back then, she had laughed and started tickling her, because her laughter was simply adorable.

She had chocolate brown eyes and the cutest nose in existence. She was the first girl Claire kissed, the first girl she really liked. They weren’t out-out, because they knew Magda’s parents wouldn’t approve, but they’d done nothing to hide it around their friends or when they were Claire’s apartment. Claire wrote stupid poems about her hair and held her hand at every chance she got. It was easy to dismiss Mr. Salinger as just her creepy neighbor when she was too busy being this happy.

That was, until he’d come to knock on their door one evening and asked to speak with Castiel. Claire had scurried away into the kitchen to keep making dinner (back then, she had decided she wanted to learn to cook because microwave ramen was the bane of her existence), assuming Salinger wanted to discuss something about the building’s state or whatnot. That was why she’d been surprised when she heard her uncle’s voice raising in volume, furious.

“It is none of your business, and in the future, I would prefer if you kept your opinions about my niece to yourself!” Castiel had told him. He wasn’t a man who lost his temper easily, but that day he’d sounded ready to deck someone in the face. He’d slammed the door so hard Claire was sure the apartment three floors down had heard it.

“What… did he want?” she asked when he walked into the kitchen. His face was red and his frown was deeper than ever. He took a deep breath and shook his head.

“Nothing. Let’s have dinner.”

Claire was smart enough to imagine her uncle was lying and that Salinger had said something homophobic. But again, she’d dismissed him as the guy being a creep and an asshole. She’d forgotten about the incident when, months later, Salinger came to knock on the door again.

_“Hello, little lady,” he said when Claire opened, just a little bit, with the chain locking it. “Sorry to bother you, but I seem to have misplaced my key and my phone died. You mind if I use yours to call for help?”_

_“Uh…” Claire hesitated. Castiel usually got home at around the same time she got out of school, but that day he had sent her a text saying he’d be a few minutes late because of some issue at the center._

_“It’ll be just a moment and then I’ll be out of your hair,” Salinger had insisted. “Boy scout promise.”_

_Claire should have told him to wait until her uncle got there. She should have remembered the creepy looks and Magda’s voice: “I don’t like him”. She should have trusted her gut, because it was screaming at her that letting this guy in was a bad idea. She should have known that being polite and being nice just wasn’t as important as being safe._

_It had been her fault. It didn’t matter how much everyone told her it wasn’t, she was stupid enough to open the door for him._

_“Thank you,” he’d said, taking two steps inside. “Can I bother you for a glass of water?”_

_“Oh, sure,” Claire said and that’s when she made her second mistake: she’d turned her back on him. “Would you like ice with it…?”_

_The hand that grabbed her by the hair and yanked was cruel and strong and it unbalanced her. Before she even had time to understand what was going on, she was falling hard on the floor, with Salinger standing right above her. She screamed, but he pinned her down on the floor and backhanded her to shut her up. The pain shocked her. Nobody had ever hit her before. Through the tears, she saw something a sinister silver object in his hand._

_“Shut up, you little dyke!” he’d screamed in her face. Claire could see the wrinkles around his mind, the manic glimmer in his eyes. “Shut up! I’m doing this for you! I’m going to fix you!”_

_Claire thought she shouted. She thought she tried pushing him back, but she really couldn’t remember. When she realized the object in his hand was a Swiss knife, panic flooded her mind so fast she found herself unable to move a muscle or kick him. All she could do from then on was trying not to choke on her own tears._

She didn’t tell all those details to Ben. But she did tell him enough that he looked like he was about to vomit.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. And then, almost like he didn’t want to, but he still needed to know: “Did he…?”

“No.” Claire shook her head. “He just… roughed me up a bit. My uncle came home before Salinger had time to do anything. He punched him in the face, locked him up in the bathroom and called the police. It was… it was pretty rad, actually.”

Ben nodded as if that made a lot of sense. It didn’t make sense for Claire. Her uncle had always been a kind, mild-manner man, so she didn’t know where that rage, where all that strength had come from. But when it was over, and he sat with her on the couch holding her and assuring her that it would be okay, that it was all over, she had clung unto him with both hands and silently thank a God she didn’t believe in anymore that he was there.

“But you know, that’s kind of the worst part,” Claire concluded. “He left me so fucked up in the head… and he didn’t even rape me.”

“He hurt you,” Ben said, softly. “I mean… that’s already pretty horrible. What happened to him?”

“He’s in jail. They offered him a plea bargain. He’ll be out in…”

Claire started crying again, and holy shit, where did all those tears come from? But she wasn’t crying because of the panic attack or because she had to think about Salinger again after doing a pretty good job of doing that as little as possible. She was crying because she had told herself so many times that she had no right to be this depressed, this broken, when there were other women, other people, who’d had it so much worse than her. She was crying because Ben was telling she was wrong about that and giving her permission to cry as much as she wanted. She was sure she would stop believing it as soon as she calmed down, but for now, it was just easy to let all her frustration, all her fear, all her anger flow out.

Ben did the same thing Castiel had done: he held her and let her. He didn’t even protest that she was getting his favorite band’s shirt all wet and slimy with buggers.

“Do you feel better?” he asked when her sobbing died out a little bit.

“I’m…” Claire muttered and shrugged, because quite honestly, she wasn’t sure. She felt tired. A little ashamed that she had unloaded all this baggage on Ben. But at the same time, there was a certain sense of pure relief that she couldn’t shake off.

Ben patted her in the shoulder and smiled at her.

“Why don’t we go for an ice cream? My treat,” he offered her.

“Not sure I’m in the mood for ice cream.”

“Well… they have napkins there,” he pointed out. “And you know, a bathroom.”

Claire glanced at herself in the rearview mirror and let out a strangled chuckled. Yes, she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to wash her face before she went home.

 

* * *

 

Meg didn’t react to the new that she was directly competing against her worst enemy the way Castiel thought she would. In fact, she didn’t react at all. When he told her what Cesar had said about _Rowena_ ’s owner, she simply had muttered: “Oh”. And then she had abruptly changed the topic whenever he’d tried to bring it up again. So Castiel had dropped it. She was stubborn and if she didn’t want to talk about something, there was no way to force her to.

However, he did notice a change in her behavior in the weeks leading up to the Wood Memorial Stakes. She always trained hard, but those days, she insisted they stayed in the track even when they were losing daylight and it was no longer ideal to have the horses out. Castiel woke up to an empty bed most mornings, only to find Meg was already up and doing laps in the pool, even before the sun had come up and had time to warm up the water a little bit. She replaced her usual morning coffee for protein shakes that Andrea diligently prepared and she had caught him in their bathroom weighting herself and staring down at the scale as if she was engaged with it in a battle of wills.

“I’m old,” she determined the Friday night before the race.

Castiel spit out the toothpaste and rinsed his brush under the water stream.

“No, you’re not,” he said automatically. He had learned the hard way that when a woman made comments like that, she was looking for immediate denial on his part, no matter how true it was.

“Well, my body’s getting old. I used to be able to shake off six pounds before a race just like that.” She snapped her fingers and climbed down from the scale. “Now it seems starving myself is the only way to get the same results.”

“I don’t think that’s healthy, Meg,” Castiel pointed out. “If you’re starved, you might fall off the horse. You could get trampled.”

He intended it as a joke, but it clearly fell flat. Meg glared at him before stalking out of the bathroom. Castiel hit the lights and followed her only to find she was already under the covers, with her back turned towards him. So, it was going to be one of those nights. Castiel sighed, took off his shirt and quietly slid on the bed by her side in just his pajama pants. He was wondering whether to put his arm around her waist or not when she rolled over and looked at him with those big eyes that always seem to pin exactly where he was.

“I am old,” she insisted. “Maybe not in human years, but in jockey terms, I am over the hill. I have what? Five, six years left?”

“There are jockeys who keep running well into their forties,” Castiel reminded her.

“Yeah, those are the guys who are in the back of the race all the time,” she argued, bitterly. “When you’re running the fastest horse in the track, there’s bound to be some risks. My bones won’t heal as easy as ten years ago.”

Castiel remembered how she had told her about the time she had a bad fall and had her leg badly fracture. He wondered if she was fearing she would have a similar fall one of these days or if it was simply her usual pre-race pessimism and nervousness. In any case, this wasn’t their usual subjects of pillow talk. Well, they rarely did talk when they went to bed…

He brushed her hair aside and smiled at her.

“Maybe, and please don’t get mad if I’m wrong, you _want_ to retire.”

Meg scoffed and sank further under the covers, so now he could only see her nose and her eyes.

“Why would I want to do that?” she asked, as if Castiel had just suggested they adopted a baby dinosaur.

“Well, you wouldn’t be trying to find excuses to do it if you weren’t thinking it.”

She didn’t say anything for the longest of times. Castiel was going to tell her to forget it and remind her they had a long day ahead when she spoke again:

“I’ve been doing this my entire life. I didn’t go to college because dad and my grandpa needed me to run. It’s the only thing I really know how to do.”

“I don’t know. From where I’m standing, you’ve also done a pretty good job at running a ranch.”

“Oh, is that why we’re barely keeping our heads above the water?”

But she didn’t sound angry. It was amazing, Castiel thought as he gently placed a hand on her thigh, how he’d come to learn the difference between the sarcasm that was meant to be hurtful and the sarcasm that was meant to be humorous. This was the latter, and the fact she was able to joke about an issue that genuinely worried her was a good sign.

She snuggled closer to him.

“I mean, I’ve done what I could. I hated it at first,” she admitted. “You know, I kept thinking it was because I just wasn’t used to that kind of work, that first my dad and then Ruby and Tom were the ones doing all the heavy-lifting while I just run the races.”

“And then?”

Meg’s leg grazed his and Castiel caught himself hoping it wouldn’t be one of those nights after.

“Then I found out what I really hated was doing it alone.”

She kissed him and afterwards, neither of them felt like speaking.


	34. Friendly Competition

Claire parked the Maverick outside of the Mills’ household and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t know why. She looked the same as always. But for some reason, she felt the impulse to fix her hair and put on some lip-gloss. In the backseat, _Bilbo_ whined impatiently and scratched the door, trying to open it so he could run around in Jody’s garden.

“You have literally miles and miles of fields to run in at home,” Claire told him.

 _Bilbo_ insisted, because his dog mind simply didn’t understand why Claire was being hesitant about getting out of the car.

To be fair, Claire didn’t either. This was like any other time she stayed with Alexis while Castiel and Meg were away on a race. It was a use that could have died since they already know Benny and Andrea were like family and since they had moved into the main house, because that eliminated Castiel’s anxiety about her being alone in the cabin and, presumably, burning it to the ground. But Claire still enjoyed spending time with Alexis, and she always seemed so happy to have her over that they had simply continued it.

And that weekend would be no different, except for the fact that Ben had the weekend shift at the Roadhouse and couldn’t hang out with them. His last text about it had been: “Go get her, girl!” with a thumbs up emoji. Claire had answered with a barrage of insults telling him she wasn’t going to get _anything_ , because she was definitely and absolutely _not_ inviting Alexis to the prom with her. He had simply answered with a face that wiggled its eyebrows suggestively, so Claire had stopped answering until he decided to stop being an ass.

She knew he was trying to cheer her up after the previous day’s emotional outburst and the insane amount of quantities of ice cream they had eaten together until she felt slightly better. Ben had sent a text to Alexis to explain why they couldn’t pick her up and school and offered her to join them, but Alexis had simply replied that she would be walking home. After that, Ben had insisted on the reasons why Claire should absolutely ask Alexis to go with her to the prom. The main reason, according to him, was to spite Henry.

“Why is he so hanged up on it anyway? I thought he was dating Tracey.”

“Yeah, that lasted for like, two weeks. But I think he thinks that if Alexis does end up dating you, or any other girl for that matter, that means he was such a terrible boyfriend that he turned her lesbian.”

“You don’t just turn lesbian,” Claire had groaned. “You just are. Or bi or whatever.”

“I know that and you know that,” Ben had said, in between shoving spoonfuls of ice cream into his mouth. “But Henry is a sad little asshole who thinks lesbians are out to steal all the girls, without realizing the reason he can’t get a girl and keep her is because he is sad little asshole.”

That had made a weird amount of sense.

“Think of Henry as personified homophobia,” Ben had continued. “Wouldn’t it be satisfying to rub it in his face that you can get the girl and be happy despite him existing in the world?”

“It’s not that easy,” Claire had protested.

“Never said it was.”

“Alex is not into girls.”

“Are you sure about that?” Ben had asked, tilting his head. “I mean, I couldn’t tell you were into girls. It doesn’t hurt to ask, it’s all I’m saying.”

Then he had eaten more ice cream and got brain freeze so severe it was hard to maintain a coherent conversation. But what he had said had kept running around Claire’s mind. She also hadn’t suspected Magda was into girls until they went to watch a movie together and then ended up making out in the parking lot. She had hoped, but that was different from actually knowing. Maybe the gaydar was a myth or something people developed with age. Maybe hers was just off because of her depression and social anxiety. Maybe the way Alexis smiled at her and always insisted on being with her was a little what she had imagined it could be.

And maybe that was the stupidly gay part of her brain being far too optimistic for her own good. Either way, maybe he wouldn’t _ask her_ ask her, but she could… drop a hint or two. Ask Alexis what she thought of Hayley Kiyoko, for example. Or something. God, how was she so bad at this?

She stopped thinking about it. She just had to do it, because as soon as it was done, she wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. And honestly, at this point, getting rid of all those pesky and insecure thoughts sounded like a blessing. She got out of the car, swung her overnight bag over her shoulder and grabbed Bilbo by the collar when he jumped out of the car, barking and pulling with the same overt enthusiasm as always.

Claire should have known something wouldn’t be right when Alexis came to open the door and actually seemed surprise to see her there. Her eyebrows rose up to the line of her bangs and she took a step backwards, as if she was about to flee inside or slam the door in her face.

“Hello,” Claire greeted her with a smile, pretending she hadn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps Alexis was just watching one of those soap operas that she and Ben relentlessly made fun of or she’d just had an argument with her mom. “I hope I’m not late.”

“You…” Alexis started, and awkwardly shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry. I forgot you were coming.”

That unbalanced Claire for a moment. She always let Alexis know weeks in advance when the next race would be and she knew for a fact that Castiel had called Jody to make sure that there wouldn’t be a problem if Claire stayed overnight again. So could she have forgotten about it?

She shook it off. It could happen. Maybe she had been too busy studying or watching a series or something and she had lost track of time.

“That’s okay. Is Jody home? ‘Cause if she isn’t, Cas gave me money to buy a pizza…”

She took a step forwards, and to her surprise, Alexis moved to the side, blocking her way. She seemed downright terrified now, as if Claire had really been about to catch her doing something. She opened her mouth and closed it again.

“What?” Claire asked, frowning.

“I… I have someone over,” Alexis explained. She lowered her eyes for a moment, then straightened her shoulders like she was gathering strength to do something difficult and clarified: “A boy.”

Claire heard those words, but in her mind, they sounded like a boom or a thunder that suddenly scattered all the castles she had built around this one evening with her friend. She blinked a couple of times as she processed what she was being told.

“Oh,” she said in the end. “Uh… someone I know?”

“It’s Aiden,” Alexis said.

It took a second for Claire to remember the pimpled-faced boy Alexis had danced with at Krissy’s Halloween party and when she did, she wondered why Alexis seemed so mortified about it. Sure, Aiden wasn’t the greatest looking guy and… she actually didn’t know enough about him to tell if he was nice or not, but it could be worse. Alexis could do worse.

She could be put in the awkward position of having to reject her stupid lesbian friend. That would be much worse.

Alexis must have interpreted her silence as shaming of some kind, because she started talking very fast and explaining:

“It just… we were talking on Facebook and I mentioned my mom wasn’t home and he asked if he could come over and… it just happened, Claire.”

“You could have mentioned that I was coming to spend the night,” she pointed out.

Alexis clenched her jaw.

“Like I said. It slipped from my mind.”

Claire bit the inside of her cheek for a second. No matter which way she sliced it, the obvious truth of the matter was staring at her in the face: Alexis had wanted Aiden there. She could have come up with a million excuses not to have him over. She could have simply told him no. But for whatever reason, he was there and Claire was being kicked out.

“Okay, well.” She pulled from _Bilbo_ ’s collar back a little, but she didn’t really need to. _Bilbo_ had sensed that something wasn’t right with this visit and sat down, wagging his tail interrogatively now and then. “I can come back later…”

“You know what? I think Aiden and I might go out later. So… can we reschedule?”

Claire stared at her friend for a second, trying to keep her cool. Her stomach was a knot and she could feel the heat rising in her face. At the same time, there was a weird lump in her throat that kept her from answering until the man of the hour himself showed up behind Alexis.

“Hey, Claire!” he greeted her with a smile. He had done something to his face, because it didn’t look as acne-ridden as before and his hair was slicked back with… was that gel?

But the worst part of it was that he seemed genuinely happy to see her. As if he had no idea what was going on, and he probably didn’t. Claire wasn’t too sure either. Alexis was her best friend, they told each other everything… well, not everything, but most things. And she had never once mentioned liking or being interested in Aiden at all.

Or perhaps it was just that Claire had been too blinded by her own crush to see it, because it was evident that this was the case.

“Are you gonna stay?”

“No,” Claire said, pulling a little tighter from _Bilbo_ ’s collar. “I was just leaving.”

Alexis caught up to her when she was already opening the Maverick’s door and trying to force her very disappointed dog to jump inside.

“Are you angry?”

“Why would I be angry?” Claire replied, even though yes, she was. Angry and disappointed and all around wishing she was somewhere else entirely.

“I’m sorry. I told you, I forgot.” Alexis crossed her arms over her chest. “I guess that happens sometimes, huh?”

Claire stopped trying to fight with _Bilbo_ and raised her eyes at her friend. She had heard her, she just couldn’t believe that was what this was about.

“You’re mad because Ben and I went out without yesterday…?”

“You told me there was nothing going on,” Alexis reminded her, her tone growing cold and accusing.

“It wasn’t like that!”

She stopped talking, because the lump in her throat was overtaking her and she didn’t want to start crying again. She had done that plenty the previous day and she didn’t want Alexis to see her like that. So instead, she took a deep breath and pulled _Bilbo_ into the backseat, closing the door before the dog had a chance to escape.

“You got it all wrong and this is incredibly petty,” she told her. “I thought… better of you, Alex.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alexis asked, but Claire was no lingered interested in talking to her. She walked around the car and opened the driver’s seat door. “Hey!”

“Call me when you decide to actually talk to me instead of assuming what’s going on,” Claire replied.

She didn’t even look in the rearview mirror as she sped down the street, heading back for the ranch. She wouldn’t have been able to see much among the tears she was trying to hold back anyway.

 

* * *

 

The Aqueduct seemed especially crowded that day, but somehow, Meg spotted Ruby among the trainers and jockeys who were getting their horses ready for the race. She grabbed Castiel by the sleeve of his shirt and pointed in Ruby’s direction.

“There she is!”

“Yes, indeed, she is there,” Castiel conceded. Meg glared at him. “Meg, what can you even do? It’s not worth thinking about her.”

“You’re probably right,” Meg said.

Castiel should have known by how easily she dropped the topic that she was going to do the exact opposite of that. He turned around two seconds to make sure _Morningstar_ ’s bridle was properly adjusted and when he looked again, Meg was marching confidently towards _Lady Rowena_ ’s cubicle. He cursed under his breath, closed the gate and followed her. He didn’t get there long enough to hear how the conversation started, but he managed to catch Ruby’s shocked face at Meg’s words.

“I don’t know what you mean…”

“Please, let’s not play any games,” Meg interrupted her coldly. “Tell me the truth, Ruby. I think you owe me that much.”

Ruby opened her mouth, perhaps to defend herself, but Castiel had reasonable grounds to believe she knew exactly what would happen if she lied to Meg.

“Well, fine. Crowley offered me a job. I took it. What of it?”

Meg closed her eyes for a second, as if Ruby had just slapped her in the face. Or stabbed her in the back, as the case may be. Castiel kicked himself mentally. It hadn’t occurred to her the reason Meg had been so quiet about this issue is that Ruby used to be her friend.

“What of it?” Meg repeated. Her eyes were sparkling when she opened them again and her cheeks turned red with barely contained fury. Castiel had thought about intervening, but he decided he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that stare. “You’re actively trying to bankrupt me!”

“Well, I’m sorry you see it that way. But I’m just looking out for myself, same thing as you’ve always done.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That ranch was always a priority for you!” Ruby accused her. “You’d throw anything and anyone under the bus for it. You’d do anything to keep it running, even hide from me that my husband had spent all of our money and knocked someone else up!”

“You think I knew what Tom was doing? I was just as surprised as you!”

“Don’t insult me. He’s your brother, of course you would take his side.”

“So you’re doing this to me to get back at Tom?” Meg laughed bitterly. “That’s cheap, Ruby. Even for you. I thought we were friends.”

Ruby narrowed her eyes at Meg and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Are you done?” she asked. “I have a race to win.”

“Yes.” Meg almost spat out the word: “I’ll guess I’ll see you on the track.”

She turned around without even acknowledging Castiel’s presence and stalked back towards _Morningstar_. Castiel exchanged a look with Ruby and awkwardly walked away before he had to be told so.

“Meg,” he called her when he caught up with her. “Don’t think about that. You have to focus on the race right now.”

Meg held unto _Morningstar_ ’s bridle and stayed very still, with her face buried in the horse’s mane. For a moment he thought she was crying and stretched his hand to touch her shoulder, but Meg straightened her back and jumped to reach the spurs.

“I know,” she said, as she planted herself firmly atop of her champion. The anguish and fury in her face had been replaced by pure determination. “And that’s exactly what I’ll focus on.”

 

* * *

 

The Roadhouse was a crowded when Claire arrived, so Ben didn’t see her at first. When he finally caught his eye, he shot a quick look at the counter to confirm that Ellen was busy serving the patrons there and scurried towards her quickly.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her, as he feigned cleaning the table. “I thought you’d be at Alexis’ house watching the race.”

“Yeah. Change of plans.”

She told him what had happened the day before and even as paranoid as Ben was to be caught slacking on the job, he still managed to stop to throw her a sad look.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Claire said, shrugging. Even though it absolutely did matter and she have been obsessing about it since she got out of Alexis’ house. She had barely slept a wink the night before, even with all the comfort food Andrea had provided her with.

Jo walked past them with a tray so Ben quickly extracted a notepad from his apron’s pocket.

“So, what do I bring you?” He waited until Jo was out of earshot and added in a lower tone: “Don’t worry about the money. It’s on the house.”

“I appreciate your pity, but I don’t think this whole eating my feelings is going to be healthy on the long run.”

“Cheeseburger and a milkshake?”

“Yes, please,” Claire growled. She was pretty hungry after all.

When Ben left, she looked around to keep her mind distracted: the Roadhouse was pretty crowded, which she imagined was usual for a Saturday at noon and most of the patrons congregated near the bar, sipping their beers and watching the TV. It was turned on a sports’ channel and Claire saw a racing track. She blinked in surprised and stood up to get closer.

“I’m telling you, Ellen, they’re slacking,” a black man with wrinkles in his forehead was saying. He seemed pretty pleased, in fact. “There’s no way your girl over there is going to make it.”

“If you’re so sure, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?” Ellen replied, patting the counter to show two bowls, one blue and one red. Claire stretched her neck to see that they were filled with dollar bills, mostly fives or tens.

“She already lost you some money last time,” Bobby pointed out. “What makes you think today will be different?”

“Are you betting on Meg and _Morningstar_?” Claire asked. All the heads turned towards her, some of them shocked to a see a tiny teenager there and some of them amused.

“We are,” Ellen admitted. “Don’t tell Sheriff Mills. Or the Masters.”

She blinked at her and Claire choked back a laugh.

“They won’t hear it from me,” she promised them. She moved a stool out and sat by their side, like she belonged in that bar as much as any of them. “So how does this work?”

It turned out they had been having bets every single race from the last several months. The blue bowl was the money of the people who bet for them, the red for those who bet against. Some of them had already bet that _Morningstar_ would make it all the way not only to the Kentucky Derby, but to the Triple Crown as well.

“They’re then three biggest races of the circuit,” Bobby explained. “ _Morningstar_ … the first _Morningstar_ won two out of three of them. It was a great disappointment, because there are like maybe twelve other horses who’ve managed to win all three and you can believe the old Masters would have never shut up about it if his had been one of them.”

“So you think they have any chances?”

“Girl, the only one who’s betting for them consistently is Ellen,” the black man, whose name was Rufus, told her.

“And I’ve won more times than I’ve lost.” Ellen shrugged. “At this point, it’s just smart business.”

The men huffed and scoffed with skepticism.

Claire tapped her fingers on the counter pensively and then took out her wallet. She stretched a ten dollar bill towards the blue bowl and Ellen frowned at her.

“Are you even of age, girl?”

“I’ll be eighteen in a couple of weeks,” Claire replied.

Ellen continued glaring at her, but the announcer spoke up:

“The horses are at the gate…”

“Good enough for me.” Ellen turned the volume of the TV up.

Claire put the ten in the bowl and raised her head. She spotted _Morningstar_ shiny black coat and Meg’s checkered jacket on the screen and crossed her fingers.

The back of Castiel's shirt was damped with seat. He signaled the vendors and bought a can of beer and then another, but switched to soda when he realized he was drinking just to have something to do while he waited for the race to start. Ruby was sitting two steps underneath him. She hadn’t tried to shake his hand or wish him luck with that fake little smile that had bothered him so much last time. Either she was too furious following Meg’s confrontation or she simply had dropped any and all pretenses that this was just a friendly competition.

There was too much on the line for it to be.

“The horses are at the gate,” the announcer said and Castiel squeezed the can he still had in his hand until he felt its hard edges digging in his palm. “And they’re off! _Morningstar the Third_ quickly takes the lead…”

“Ha!” Ellen exclaimed with a happy smile.

Claire didn’t say anything, but she fixed her eyes on the Hell Horse as everyone on the Roadhouse held their breaths.

Castiel's stomach sank as the black bolt that was _Morningstar_ left behind all the other horses. This wasn’t right. Meg never did this, because she knew horses who gained an early advantage exhausted themselves far too quickly or got injured when their jockeys demanded too much of them. She kept _Morningstar_ behind and then used his energy to speed him up on the final stretch. This time, she was almost standing on the saddle, her body leaned forwards almost over the head of the horse and the whip on her hand cracking the air mercilessly.

“What are you doing?” Castiel shouted.

But whatever it was, it was working: the other horses tried and failed to keep up with them, but they were all literally eating their dust as Meg and _Morningstar_ took the curve and put an even greater distance between themselves and the rest.

“They can’t keep it up,” Bobby determined. “He’ll get tired.”

“Nervous, Bobby?” Ellen asked, but Claire noticed she was squeezing a napkin between her hands.

The activity at the Roadhouse, that up until that point had been bubbling, had stopped completely. No one was serving tables or asking for anything. All eyes were on the screen.

“Come on,” Claire muttered under her breath.

“… _Morningstar_ is on fire! But as they move to the final stretch, _Lady Rowena_ takes second place and catches up with him…”

“No!” Castiel almost screamed. “No, don’t let her!”

He could have sworn Meg heard him, because _Morningstar_ started running even faster, his neck stretching as far as he could, his legs almost floating above the ground. They became a blur on the track and before Castiel had time to scream again… it was over.

“ _Mornignstar the Third_ wins first place by three lenghts!”

“Yes!”

Claire jumped from her stool and waved her fist in the air… only to hit the person right behind her. A pained yelp was quickly followed by a clattering and shattering of glass.

“Not only that, ladies and gentleman, but after twelve years, the Stakes have a new record, beating the previous one by two seconds and thirteen miliseconds…”

Castiel’s heart beat in his throat. Two seconds. In horseracing terms, that was an eternity. Clapping and cheering erupted in the stands at the announcement, while the jockeys all struggled to stop their horses. Meg had left them all struggling and sweating, unable to catch up with her as she had decided to show exactly what her champion was made of.

He took one look over his shoulder as he started to make his way towards the track. Ruby was immobile, stuck on her seat, staring at the track open-mouthed. Like she hadn’t expected it, like she hadn’t believed Morningstar and Meg were capable of this and much more. He thought about approaching her and congratulating her for a race well-run, but… he would rather leave the pettiness to Meg.

Morningstar was covered in sweat and he had his ears stuck to his skull when he stopped. Meg almost ripped the bucket of water from the helper’s hands and offered it to them as she patted him on the muzzle and urged him to drink.

“You did good, champ,” she told him. “You did very good.”

She too looked like she was short of breath and would fall over at any second. Her cheeks were read and her helmet was lopsided. But when she raised her eyes and saw him, a radiant smile appeared on her face. Castiel burst into laughter and Meg broke into a run so fast he barely had time to open his arms.

She slammed against him so hard he stumbled, but managed to stay on his feet, holding Meg up so her feet dangled above the ground, but she didn’t mind. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clashed her mouth against her, clumsy and excited and almost biting.

And he swore all the clapping got louder, but he was far too lost in her warmth to pay attention.

 

* * *

 

“Shit, Ben, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Ben was now on her stool, still looking disoriented and hurt, rubbing his jaw on the spot where Claire’s fist had hit him. Jo was picking up the pieces of glass and porcelain from the floor, while trying not to step on the pool of spilled chocolate milkshake that quickly expanded to swallow the scattered remains of the cheeseburger that would have been Claire’s lunch.

“It’s fine,” Ben said, but his lower lip was swollen, so it sounded more like a ‘ _thine_ ’. “Don’t worry”. ‘ _Wobby_ ’.

“Here.” Ellen returned from the back with a pack of frozen beans. “Put this on your face.”

“Hey, that’s… that’s Novak, right?” someone said, pointing at the screen.

Claire looked up in time to see Meg jumped in her uncle’s arm and start making out with him in front of the crowd. Her face burned with second-hand embarrassment, especially when people at the Roadhouse began laughing and hooting.

“Told you I saw them making out like a couple of teens the other day!” Rufus said, pointing a triumphant finger at Bobby. “And you accused me of being a gossipy old aunt…”

“Doesn’t mean you weren’t, just that your gossip happened to be true this time,” Bobby commented.

“Well, many women in town are gonna be disappointed,” Jo commented with a giggle as she pressed the platter against her hip. “Your uncle was quite the catch around these parts, did you know that, Claire?”

Claire didn’t know and she could have gone her entire life happily without that knowledge.

“Oh, she’s just pulling your leg.” Ellen threw a severe glance at her daughter, who turned around still giggling. “Why don’t you kids have a milkshake to make up for that one?”

“Really?”

“Of course.” Ellen smiled evilly at Bobby and Rufus. “These two can pay with the money they owe me.”

 

* * *

 

Their return to the ranch was the most cheerful Castiel ever remembered. Benny had hanged a banner of "Congratulations!" above the entry gates and Andrea had announced on the phone that she had was baking them a cake with Morningstar's face on it. But Castiel's favorite part had to be, undoubtedly, when they parked his car in front of the house and the door swung open and Claire and Bilbo came running out fast.

"You made it!" she screamed as she lunged into Castiel's open arms. "You made it into the Derby!"

"That's right, kiddo!" Meg replied, with a toothy grin. She almost lifted up Claire from the floor when she hugged her. "We're going big, no matter what the naysayers think!"

Castiel had to laugh, since he knew for a fact that Meg was thinking of one naysayer in particular. She had been exulting since the moment they had announced her as the winner and truth be told, so had he. When they'd returned to the hotel, they'd drunk almost an entire bottle of champagne and made love like they had won the Triple Crown already.

And maybe it was an extension of that good mood, but he could swear Claire seemed a lot brighter too. The last few days, she had been somber and a little grumpy, but she had refused to tell him why and Castiel knew better than to insist when Claire decided to shut him out. But now she smiled and let him throw a hand around her shoulders and pull her close.

"I'm glad to see you so happy," Castiel commented, as they started making their way to the house.

"Well, why wouldn't I be?" She shrugged. "My birthday's coming up. You guys broke a racing record. I won fifty bucks..."

"What?"

She didn't have time to clarify what she meant. Just as easy and great as the mood had come, it vanished in thin air when they heard a motor roaring down the house's path.

He didn't have to turn to know what was coming. There were no cars as noisy as that one in all of the town and in any case, he saw it on Meg's face when she turned around and cringed.

"Oh, no. No, no, fuck that. He's not going to ruin this for me," she said.

She practically jumped the steps of the porch and strode towards Tom's car at the same time her brother stepped out of it. Castiel exchanged a look with Claire, and then promptly followed Meg. Perhaps it was best for him to stay out of their family business, but if he could prevent a murder, he might as well try to.

"I paid you everything!" Meg shouted at him before Tom could even say a word. "I haven't even cashed in the check we got in the latest race yet, so you better get into your stupid car and haul your ass out of here before I tell Benny to bring me Grandpa's shotgun! I'm fucking serious, Thomas!"

Instead of shouting back or demanding money, Tom took a step backwards and raised his hands in the air, as if he was asking for mercy.

"I'm not here for the money, sis," he declared. "I came to help."


	35. Many Happy Returns

As far as tense family reunions went, Castiel hadn't had a more awkward one since his mother's cousins had insisted on burying her remains instead of cremating them like he and Jimmy wanted. This was somehow even worse, because even though it wasn't his family, he still felt compelled to stick around in the living room while it unfolded. Or rather, while the Masters stared at each other in hostile silence.

Andrea served coffee and cake for everybody as if this was a normal visit, but the only one who found it in her to take a bite was Claire. Meg was too full of nervous energy to sit eat and Tom left his plate on the coffee table, untouched. He sat on the couch and waited for Meg to stop pacing and talk to him:

"You've got five minutes," she said finally, with a warning glare.

"Look, I know you're mad. And frankly, you've got reasons to be," Tom admitted. "I haven't been the most helpful around here..."

"Try not at all," Meg pointed out. "I've been running things by myself for months."

"Yes, and I let you, because I thought you'd eventually see it was a fool's errand and I'll convince you to sell."

"You're not really making a good case for yourself here, chief," Benny said.

Tom was taken aback. He raised an eyebrow at Benny as if he couldn’t believe he would speak like that to his boss, but he must have realized pretty quickly that no one in that room recognized him as such, even if he technically was. He was outnumbered.

“Okay, fine.” He rubbed his temples as if all of this was giving him a headache. “I’m… I didn’t believe you could do it, Meg,” he confessed, turning towards her. “I thought that damned horse was unbreakable. But I saw him run in the last race… it was like watching that old tape of the first _Morningstar_ at the Derby. You remember? Grandpa showed it to us every other month to inspire us or something.”

For a second, the shadow of a smile grazed Meg’s lips, but it disappeared just as quickly as it showed up.

“I told you he was a champion.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry I doubted you.” Tom stood up and took a couple of steps towards Meg. “I want to come back. I want to help, in any way I can.”

“Is there a way you can help, though?” Meg asked, narrowing her eyes. “Because investors won’t trust you after the stunt you pulled two years ago and everybody in the circuit kind of hates us because of you…”

“I am aware,” Tom sighed. “I am also aware that no matter how good that horse is, this is still sort of a hail Mary for you. So here’s the deal: I’m willing to put forwards my part of the money so we…”

Andrea cleared her throat noisily.

“… so _you_ can keep the place running,” Tom corrected himself. “And we split the earnings at the end of the year, like we used to do. It’s the best deal I can offer you, Meg.” He offered her his hand. “Friends again?”

Meg looked down at his hand and then up at his face. Whatever she saw in it must have convinced her, because she slowly raised her hand and shook his.

“Fine,” she told him. “Friends again.”

“Awesome.” Tom nodded. “And also… I need a place to crash.”

“Please tell me I’m not have a horde creditors barging in here demanding a pound of flesh from you.” Meg cringed.

“No. No funny business, I promise.”

Meg stared at him in worried silence a moment longer and the sighed.

“I’ll help you get your bags. You can stay in the guests' room.”

“The guests' room?” Tom repeated as Meg walked by his side towards the door. “What about the main room?”

“My boyfriend and I are staying there now.”

Tom was just as stunned by that affirmation as Castiel himself.

“Your boyfriend?” he repeated and slowly turned to Castiel. “This guy?”

Castiel managed to collect himself and stuck his chin up in the air.

“Yes,” he stated, in a tone that he hoped insinuated: _‘Got a problem with that?’_

Tom didn’t seem to have a problem. He had just been caught by surprise.

“We definitely have a lot of catching up to do,” he commented as he followed Meg towards the door.

Andrea, Benny and Castiel exchanged a look.

“Guess the other boss is back,” Benny commented.

“Yup, up until the point he stabs Meg in the back and tries to sell the ranch to Crowley,” Claire declared. She took a sip from her cup and threw a glance at all the adults. “What? We’re all thinking it.”

 

* * *

 

 

After Tom took his bags upstairs, Meg insisted they went for a ride. No running in the track or timing their speed. Just out for a ride with the horses for a couple of hours. Castiel agreed because he knew that Meg’s silence meant she was in a reflexive mood and needed the exercise to clear her mind.

She mounted _Zeus_ and set him in a light, gentle trot. Castiel stayed behind her with _Persephone_ , watching the back of her head and not saying a word until Claire and _Leggers_ took their own path. Only then Castiel hurried the mare so he could catch up with Meg.

“Race you to the creek?”

Meg snapped back from her very deep thoughts and stared at him as if he had forgotten he was coming on this ride as well.

“It’s no fun when I know you’re going to lose,” she replied, but there was no bite to her words.

Castiel sank his heels on _Persephone_ ’s sides and moved in front of Meg, blocking her step.

“Meg. Talk to me,” he requested. “Are you sure this was the soundest decision? Letting Tom just come back?”

Meg looked at him with irritation, and for a second, he thought she was going to scream at her for questioning her choices. Less than a year before, she certainly would’ve done so. But now, she let out a deep sigh, letting her shoulders sink and relaxing her entire body as she did.

“No,” she admitted. “But what else was I supposed to do? He’s family.”

Castiel could have argued that being family didn’t justify all the things he had done and said to her, how he had tried to convince her to give up. However, he kept quiet. Meg already knew them.

“In any case, it will be different this time,” she said after a few seconds of silence.

“How do you figure?”

A mischievous grin appeared on her lips.

“Because I got you watching my back.”

She set _Zeus_ into a fast run, heading for the creek. Her long black hair flagged in the wind and Castiel stayed behind, just looking at her go the way he always did. He was never going to keep up with her. Not just with her running, but with her thoughts and her plans. And truth be told, he wouldn’t want to either.

But he could try.

“Come on, _Percy_ ,” he told the mare. “We can’t let her humiliate us.”

Meg humiliated them anyway. It wasn’t really that hard, but it was all worth it to hear laugh again after such heavy days.

Tom didn’t come down for dinner that night, saying he needed to finish to settle down, which was good, because his presence there would only have made things awkward. As it was, they’d all had some time to get around the idea that Meg had made a call and there was no point in trying to change it. So they ate and talk like nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day.

“Your birthday’s in a couple of weeks, isn’t it, Claire?” Meg asked. “The big eighteen.”

“Yup. I can finally vote and stuff,” Claire said, shrugging.

“You planning on doing anything with your friends?”

“Not particularly.” Claire cringed and Castiel made a mental note to ask her about that reaction later. He had noticed she hadn’t mentioned Alexis or what they’d done all day, which was odd.

“Why not? It’s an important birthday,” Meg insisted.

“Yeah, I guess. But I don’t feel in a celebratory mood.”

Castiel cleared his throat.

“If you wish, we could make a trip to the city. I can lend you my credit card so you can buy something for yourself. As long as you don’t go over a certain limit,” he added quickly.

Claire tapped her fingers on the table, like she was considering that option.

“I was actually going to talk to you about that,” she admitted in the end, talking very slowly. It was almost as if she didn’t want to tell him this, but she had no other choice. “I… kind of need a dress for the prom.”

Castiel was surprised. First, because it was the first time Claire mentioned anything about going to the prom. And second, because she wasn’t usually in the habit of spending money on clothes unnecessarily. The reason most of her jeans were ripped was because she refused to buy new ones even as the old ones turned to rags.

“Are you going to the prom?”

“Yeah, with Ben. We’re going as friends,” she clarified quickly, as if Castiel was going to think something different if she didn’t.

“That’s fine.” He nodded. “But didn’t we buy you a dress for the Winter Formal already?”

Andrea, Meg and Claire all glared at him with such disdain and outrage that Castiel immediately regretted asking that question.

“She needs a new one!” Andrea said immediately.

“Making her go to two dances with the same dress? Do you want the kid to be made fun of?” Meg added, as if he had failed to understand something fundamental.

“No, of course not…” Castiel mumbled, looking around to ask for help. Benny threw him a glance of compassion and continued eating his pork. Castiel he was alone in this. “I… yes, if you want a new dress, of course we can go…”

“And new shoes!” Claire demanded.

“New shoes are of the essence,” Andrea agreed nodding gravely.

“Yes, of course, if you want…” Castiel muttered, internally cringing at how many hits his credit card was going to take that month.

“And while you’re at it, you could also throw in a new bag,” Meg continued. “Perhaps some jewelry as well.”

Castiel opened his mouth and closed it again, completely disconcerted. The three women were staring at him, but while Meg and Claire remained completely serious, the edges of Andrea’s lips were twitching as if she as barely holding it together.

“You’re… you’re messing with me!” Castiel realized suddenly.

The three of them burst into laughter at the same time, and even Benny chuckled as he brought another piece of pork to his mouth.

“Your face was priceless,” Meg said, when she could control her giggles a little bit. “We should’ve taken a picture.”

Castiel tried to stay annoyed at them but it wasn’t easy. A few seconds later, he was joining in the laughter, because of course he shouldn’t have fallen for such out of character and outlandish petitions.

“Maybe I should go in a suit,” Claire suggested. “If people are going to give me grief for being a huge lesbian, I might as well dress the part.”

“Who’s giving you grief?” Castiel asked, frowning. “Is it that Henry boy again?”

Claire’s smile hesitated a little as she shook her head.

“No one, it was just… just an expression,” she said.

Castiel decided to let it be for the time being, but he made a mental note to call Jodie and Dean and see if they knew if there was something out of the ordinary going on.

After dessert, which was just fresh fruit for Meg and the congratulatory cake for everyone else, Benny and Andrea decided to pick up the table and wash the dishes. Meg went upstairs and Claire went to the porch to call _Bilbo_ in. Meg had protested in the beginning about the dog sleeping in the house, but Claire had defiantly declared that she would sneak him in once she was sleeping.

“Relationships are about compromise, Meg,” Castiel had reminded her and Meg had puffed and protested a little more, warning that she would kick _Bilbo_ out of the property if he peed on the furniture.

Claire had got away with hers, though, and now she climbed the stairs hanging onto the dog’s collar every night. Castiel watched her go as he waited in the living room for Jody to pick up the phone.

“No, I haven’t heard of any more trouble with Henry,” she told him when he asked. “But I did notice the girls are a little… distanced, lately. Do you know anything about that?”

“If I find it’s anything serious, I’ll let you know,” Castiel promised her.

So with that solved, he also went upstairs, already thinking about hugging Meg under the sheets, of kissing her in the spot he knew she liked…

He stopped in his tracks in the hallway. Between the dinner’s good cheer and his concern for Claire, he had forgotten there was someone else living in the house now.

“Good evening,” Tom greeted him. He had just came out of the bathroom, wearing a pair of stripped pajama pants and nothing else. Castiel narrowed his eyes at him.

“Do you mind putting on a shirt?”

Tom looked down at his naked chest and scratched underneath his nipple.

“It’s my house. I don’t see why I can’t be…”

“My teenage niece is also living here now,” Castiel informed him. “I trust that you will remain respectful of her.”

“Woah, dude.” Tom raised his hands defensively, as he had done when Meg had accused him of trying to get back there for the money. “I know you probably haven’t heard the nicest things about me, but I don’t fuck around with barely legal girls.”

“I would hope not. I don’t want us to have any troubles.”

“Me neither,” Tom promised him. “So, are we good?”

Castiel still glared at him for a few seconds.

“No, we aren’t good,” he said in the end. “Meg might have decided it was a good idea to let you back in here, but I don’t agree. I don’t trust you and I will be watching you closely. If you do anything that could result in her or the ranch being affected…”

“Oh, spare me.” Tom rolled his eyes. It was almost eerie how much he looked like Meg when doing that. “Look, I’m not gonna pretend that I’ve changed my ways and I’m a reformed man. Everybody here is too smart to fall for that. But I'm also aware that if I blow this, I'm out of chances.”

Castiel’s eyebrows rose. He hadn’t expected such a display of honesty from him.

“Well… good. I’m glad we cleared that up.”

“Yup. Goodnight.” Tom turned around and headed for his room. But Castiel’s mind wasn’t at ease just yet.

“Then… why?” he asked. He almost didn’t realize he had done it out loud until Tom stopped and looked at him over his shoulder.

“Meg is the safest bet,” he explained. “She’s always been. I’m humble enough to admit when I’ve made a mistake.”

Castiel was about to ask if that was the reason he kept avoiding the mother of his child, but he let it run. He would win absolutely nothing by making an outright enemy out of Tom. It was preferably, for Meg’s sake, that they remained in the shaky ground of reluctant allies until he had decided if Tom’s intentions were true or not.

Meg was already out of the bathroom when he came into the room.

“Hey, Clarence. Did you find out what was that thing about people giving grief to Claire?”

Castiel smiled to himself. She donned one of her silky nightgowns (the black one), and looked adorable as she brushed her long black hair while sitting on her side of the bed. He always thought she looked adorable, but that was besides the point. He informed her of his chat with Jody as he undressed down to his boxers and knelt on the bed behind her. Gently, he took the brush from her hand and started moving it on the spots he knew she had a hard time reaching. Meg let out a sigh of satisfaction that was almost a purr.

“… I want to believe that if it’s bad enough, she’ll tell me,” Castiel concluded.

“Or maybe she won’t. She’s practically an adult. Adults seldom discuss their personal lives with their parents.”

“You think this is a… personal matter?”

“Maybe it’s something she’s embarrassed about. Maybe it’s something she thinks she can solve by herself.” Meg raised her big brown eyes at him and smiled. “I get you want to protect her. But at some point you’re gonna have to trust she can protect herself.”

She was right, of course.

“It’s not easy,” Castiel said, through gritted teeth.

“Never said it was.” Meg shrugged. “Just that it’s necessary that you let her choose her own path. Speaking of which…”

“I think it’s better if you talk to Claire about that,” Castiel said, knowing exactly what Meg meant. They had talked about it plenty in the weeks before and he knew Meg wanted to do it, but he appreciated that she’d asked for his input about that issue.

“And you won’t get mad if she says yes?”

“I would be… worried,” Castiel confessed. “But I am always worried about her and in the end, it’s her call to make. I can’t change or stop that.”

Meg nodded and gently took the brush from his hand and set it down on her nightstand. It was such a domestic, such a routine gesture Castiel caught himself thinking when they had turned like this: from co-workers who could barely stand each other to…

“Did you call me your boyfriend earlier?” he asked, tilting his head.

Meg huffed and her cheeks turned slightly pink, as if she was embarrassed he had noticed that. But her gaze as defiant as always when she knelt on the mattress right in front of him.

“And what if I did?”

Castiel put his hand on her cheek and slowly let if fall down to her neck.

“I liked it.”

“Of course you did, you hopeless sap…”

Castiel kissed her and dragged her down to the covers with him.

Despite her complaints that it was too hot to cuddle, she fell asleep using his bicep as a pillow and her legs tangled with his. He had a hand around her waist and he was tempted to pull her closer, but he didn’t want to wake her up. He knew that meant she would instantly try to push him away and the next day, she would wake up without him noticing it and become the hurricane of activity she always was. And while he loved her for that, he wanted those few precious hours of peace, those hours where she was resting and unconcerned with what the real world had in store for her. Before she put on her armor and went to fight for everything she wanted. Those few precious hours where she allowed herself to be vulnerable and open and his.

Castiel made a resolution right there, as he fell asleep listening to her soft breathing. Meg really didn’t need him to protect her from Ruby, or her brother, or Crowley or anyone, really. But he was still going to try with all his might to keep her safe.

 

* * *

 

The morning of April 29th, when she finally turned eighteen years old, was a lot more underwhelming than Claire was expecting. She sort of thought she would wake up to a magical fairy that would give her a coming-of-age quest or a sense of purpose or some idea or direction of what to do with her life now that she was an adult. She didn’t even feel the excitement of it being her birthday, not like she had when she was a kid and she would run to her parents’ room and demand to see her presents. Not like when she was in high school and her uncle would wake her up with a birthday cupcake and then she would go to school to see her girlfriend and her friends and knew they would be going out to the mall or the movies later.

Instead, she woke up feeling the same as she did the day before. Worse, if that was even possible, because suddenly she was realizing that she was running out of time, that her graduation from high school was only a few _weeks_ away and that she hadn’t figured out a single thing. It wasn’t a nice feeling, but the anxiety if filled her with gave her a jolt of energy to sit up on the bed as soon as her alarm clock went off. _Bilbo_ raised his head and wagged his tail, because of course he wouldn’t care about such things as his master having an existential crisis. Claire opened the door for him so he could go downstairs and trusted someone would let him out of the house before he decided the carpet was a nice enough spot to pee.

She stood for a long time in front of the mirror in the bathroom, but physically, she didn’t notice any changes either. She was the same pale, round-faced, blonde girl that she had always been. She poke one of her sides and grimaced. Maybe Castiel had a point when he said that she should cut back on the junk food. She had been having trouble buttoning up her jeans lately. She applied her make-up very carefully, trying her best not to smudge her eyeliner lest she looked like an insomniac raccoon, and checked the hour on her phone. She couldn’t keep postponing it.

She took a deep breath and went downstairs for breakfast.

“I don’t get it,” Meg commented about something.

“It’s a… it’s a joke,” Castiel said with his back turned to her.

Neither of them spotted Claire first when she walked into the kitchen. Instead, Benny lifted his head from the spot on the counter where he was having his coffee and beamed at her.

“Hey, there, birthday girl.”

“Hi…” Claire had time to say before she was engulfed by Andrea’s embrace.

“A very happy birthday to you!” she told her and her a kiss in each cheek. “I made you a very special breakfast: we’ve got eggs and toasts and waffles and…”

“I think I’m just gonna have some coffee,” Claire said. Andrea’s smile faltered a little, so she added quickly: “But thank you. I appreciate the thought a lot.”

Meg was on the table sipping her orange juice and Castiel was quickly manipulating something on the counter. Claire filled her mug of coffee and sat down to see if she could at least ingest something of Andrea’s special breakfast.

“Many happy returns, kiddo,” Meg commented, picking up a red and black gift bag from the floor and pushing it towards her.

Claire peeked inside and immediately knew that this had to have been Castiel’s idea. The plushie inside was of Grumpy Cat, with a frown between its eyebrows and its mouth tightened in a disgruntled expression.

"Oh, I get it. It's me because I'm not a ray of sunshine all the time."

"I got it at the Hot Topical," Castiel said. "Do you like it?"

As far as gifts went, this one was a bit silly, but Claire didn't feel like erasing the smile from his face, not when he looked so pleased with himself. She forced out a smirk and got up to him to hug him.

"Yeah. It's funny. Thank you."

"You're welcome." Castiel raised the birthday cupcake with a single candle stuck on it. Claire guessed that was the thing he was manipulating earlier. "Happy birthday."

Claire blew out the candle. At least no one had started singing and that was the best she could hope for this day.

"Do you think you can drive me to the town?" Meg asked after breakfast. "I have to pay some bills. I promise I won't make you late for school."

Claire blinked a couple of times, surprised. Meg never asked her to do that. Whenever she needed to go to town, she always took Benny's truck or her uncle's car. Claire was under the impression that if she could, Meg would ride on horseback everywhere. She sneaked up a glance at Castiel, who simply nodded at her. So whatever was going on there, the both of them were in on it.

"Sure."

She was partly intrigued, but Meg didn't start talking until they were on the road and on their way to the town.

"Pretty important birthday, huh?"

"I guess," Claire said, with a shrug.

"Have you thought about what you're going to do after you graduate?"

Claire groaned. Why was everyone so interested in her future when she herself couldn't figure out what she was supposed to do with it?

"I sent some college applications back in January," she told her. "I haven't heard back from them, so I'm guessing I didn't make the cut."

"Post service is slow in this town and especially in the ranch. Maybe you'll get your answer soon."

Claire didn't say anything to that. Her prospective colleges were obviously not the thing Meg really wanted to discuss with her.

"But if you didn't get accepted, or if you really don't want to go, I have a proposal for you."

Claire gave her a quick glance over her shoulder. She hadn't been expecting that.

"You could stay in the ranch. I could train you to run," Meg said.

"What?" Claire blinked, confused. "You mean... being a jockey? Like you?"

"Eventually, yes. I'm not gonna lie to you: it's not easy. It's downright risky sometimes. But I've seen you and the chestnut and I think you make a great partnership. Of course, you wouldn't be running the professional circuit on your first year, but I'm sure we can find some low grade races for you two to participate in..."

"Woah, woah, slow down," Claire said. She stopped the car in a red light and gave Meg her full attention. "Did you... did Castiel give you permission to ask me this?"

"I've talked it over with him," Meg admitted. "He told me to ask you."

Claire didn't know what to make of that answer. She started the car again and slowly rolled down the bank's street. Traffic was busy at that time and there wasn't anywhere to park, so Claire couldn't really escape this conversation or the interrogative look Meg was giving her.

"What am I supposed to say?" she asked in the end. "I thought Castiel wanted me to go to college..."

"He does," Meg admitted. "But he also trusts that you can make the best decision for yourself."

Claire snorted at that notion. Finally, she saw a spot between two cars and stopped, but Meg didn't reach for the handle.

“Do you really think I’m cut out for it?” Claire asked in the end.

“I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t.”

"I... " Claire started, but Meg raised a finger to shut her up.

"Don't answer right now. Think it over. The ranch needs another jockey and I’d like it to be you, but the choice is yours, kid. Give it a year and if afterwards you don't think this is the career for you… well, colleges aren’t going anywhere."

She got out and walked away from the car, as if she just hadn't completely changed of all Claire's perspective about her future. Well, she wanted something to magically give her an answer and there it was. It was almost funny and when she arrived to the school’s parking lot, she almost wanted to laugh out loud. Partly because of that, partly because Ben broke into song at the top of his lungs the moment he saw her.

“ _Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, happy birthday…!_ ”

“Shut up,” Claire said, rolling her eyes at him.

“What? Is your birthday another one of those things I’m supposed to keep in secret?” Ben asked, with a big grin across his face.

“You’re awfully cheery,” Claire said, frowning at him.

“And you’re awfully bleak for it being, oh, I don’t know. Your birthday.”

“No, there’s something else,” Claire accused him. “Why are you so happy?”

Ben stopped his dancing and singing and looked for something inside of his backpack. Almost like a magician about to reveal a trick, he took out an envelope and handed it to Claire. It was open and a little wrinkled, like it had gone through many hands since its arrival. Claire saw the monogram on the side and knew what it was even before she took out the letter and read the first line.

“You got accepted?”

“I got accepted!” Ben confirmed, pointing two thumbs at himself. “You’re looking at a future Major in Dramatic Arts from the University of Connecticut! And afterwards, I’m going to be cast on SNL and take over Hollywood and you and I are going to go to all sort of parties with Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones…”

“Okay, chill,” Claire told him. Ben deflated a little bit but kept on smiling and Claire decided she didn’t want to be a grumpy cat about this. “But this is awesome. Congratulations!”

She hugged him tight for a few seconds and Ben was still smiling wide when they broke apart.

“When did you get this?” she asked, giving him the letter back. He probably wanted to frame it or something.

“This morning. I guess that means yours are about to arrive too.”

“Yeah,” Claire said and forced out a giggle. “I guess.”

Suddenly, the blurry image that was the future was starting to come into focus.


	36. Know Your Enemy

Castiel arranged the four letters on the coffee table. They had all arrived that morning, in the hands of a postman that looked annoyed at having to go all the way out of the town in order to deliver them. Castiel had put them away and now was thinking about the best way to present them to Claire. He knew she had sent the applications even though she wasn’t convinced that was what she wanted and whatever the answers were, she would be a little nervous at reading them. So he wanted to do this right.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on the field with Meg?” Tom asked, from the doorway. “The Derby is less than a week away and…”

“We’ve been training nonstop for the last few weeks,” Castiel pointed out with a groan. “Meg has given me permission to take the day off in deference to Claire’s birthday.”

Tom huffed and rolled his eyes.

“This is why you don’t date employees,” he commented. He left before Castiel could pointed out that Tom had married, cheated on and subsequently divorced the ranch’s previous trainer.

He didn’t like Tom and the feeling seemed to be completely reciprocated. He hadn’t done anything particularly out of line, like disappearing again for long periods of times or interfering with the training, but Castiel got the feeling he hadn’t been particularly useful either. He got up as early as Meg did and helped around the stables, sure, but when it came time for them to get _Morningstar_ running, Tom stood around giving indications that stepped on every single one of Castiel’s nerves.

“I’m just saying, the whip is there for a reason,” he’d comment. “Meg used it on the last race and it went well…”

“She wants to use it as little as possible,” Castiel would reply. “She doesn’t want to hurt or exhaust _Morningstar_ and I think that’s the wisest move.”

Tom usually backed off, but he it was obvious he wasn’t convinced by Castiel’s arguments, because he would come back again to suggest that pressuring the horse to his limits was the best way to get results. Even Meg got fed up with his running commentary eventually.

“Tom, go back to the finances and let us handle the horse,” she told him one afternoon. “Start calling people and offer them _Morningstar_ ’s stud services, I don’t know. Just let us train in peace.”

Tom had glared at them, but in the end he’d muttered “Fine” and walked away with a shrug. He probably knew that Meg’s temper was a ticking bomb at that point. She was always nervous before a race, but this one was far more important than all of those. So of course she would be on edge and not really in the mood to deal with anyone, even when they had the most well-intentioned concerns about her.

“How are you holding up?”

“How does it look?!” Meg had snapped at Castiel when he dared to ask that question. She'd then grimaced and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have screamed. I’m just…”

“It’s okay,” Castiel had said, lassoing an arm around her waist. “I know. It’s going to be okay.”

Meg didn’t ask him how he knew that or why he was so sure, like she'd done in the past. She simply leaned into him for a moment longer and sighed right before she determined they should go back to training.

So that had been going for the entire month. Castiel brought up the possibility of taking a day off and giving it to _Morningstar_ so he could rest, and it just so opened that his suggested day was Claire’s birthday. Meg saw right through him, but she had agreed. They still took the horses out, but they didn’t run any laps and when it was time to get them back to the stable, Meg had relieved him of his duties.

“Go. Andrea probably already has a cake and a banquet for twenty five people and you better get your thing ready before she ambushes Claire and makes her eat it.”

“Thank you.” Castiel had said. He’d given her a quick kiss on the edge of the lips and been back at the house before he realized what he’d just done.

He still wasn’t completely used to that familiarity, to that openness. The fact he could kiss her or hug her whenever he wanted… it was just mind-blowing for some reason. No, it wasn’t that he could. It was that Meg let him. She was far more open to his displays of affection since he had moved in, much calmer or at least in control of her temper.

She was trying and he could see she was trying. And to him, there was no greater show that she cared for him than that.

He was lost in those thoughts when he heard the Maverick rolling up into the garage. He stood up to wait around the coffee table, then he figured Claire might have thought that meant something bad had happened and he wanted to have a serious talk with her, so he sat back down. He shifted in his seat while _Bilbo_ barked outside, welcoming his master, and wondered if perhaps standing up was best, because he didn’t look any less serious on the couch. He was still trying to decide when Claire opened the door and _Bilbo_ ran inside, barking still.

“Okay, chill,” Claire said, patting her thigh so _Bilbo_ would run back to her. “You know if you break something, you’re going to be exiled forever…”

Her voice trailed off when she noticed Castiel in the room, standing in the end because he hadn’t had time to sit back down. She frowned at him.

“Uhm… hello?” She looked down at the coffee table and saw the letters. She knew what they were even before he said anything. There was a rush of panic in her face, right before she regained control and huffed. “I’m gonna go to my room…”

“Wait, Claire,” Castiel called her and quickly blocked her way towards the stairs. “You don’t want to see what they say?”

“I already know what they say,” Claire replied. “They’re all rejections. Happy birthday to me.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I wasn’t even trying when I wrote the essays,” Claire replied, with a groan. “So why would anyone want to accept me?”

“Claire…” Castiel pinched the bridge of his nose and forced himself to remain calm. “I know this is… a very emotional moment for you and you’re not a very optimistic person.”

“I’ll say.”

“But please, try to look at it objectively. There’s a chance you did get accepted into at least one of them. And wouldn’t you want to know all of your possibilities before you make a decision?”

“You just don’t want me to be Meg’s apprentice,” Claire accused him, narrowing her eyes at him with suspicion.

Castiel bit the inside of his cheek. Lying to her now would be a great mistake. Claire could have thought he was patronizing her and chose to end that conversation right there.

“I would prefer it if you pursued a higher education instead, yes,” he confessed. “The life of a jockey is full of risks and sacrifices. But if that’s what you want to do, I will not oppose it, of course.”

That flattened Claire’s bravado somewhat. She huffed and shifted the weight of her body from one foot to another. It took Castiel another second to realize where all of this had come from.

“You’re… you’re scared.”

“Well, shouldn’t I be?” Claire shot back. “What if I’m not good enough for any of it?”

Castiel knew that saying something dully inspirational like “Of course you’ll be!” wouldn’t be enough. Claire had never bought into blind positivity.

“There’s a chance you might not be good at first. At college or at running races,” he pointed out. “But the thing I need you to keep in mind is that no one is instantly good at anything. When you started riding, you were scared that would fall and you were so nervous… but you kept it up. You kept going despite your fear. This is what I need you to keep in mind, Claire. If you persist, even when you don’t feel you are good, you will improve in time. And you will achieve anything you set your mind to.”

Claire looked up at the ceiling and sighed deeply.

“Are we done with the inspirational fortune cookie shit?”

“If you’re feeling like opening your letters now, then yes.” Castiel shrugged. “Otherwise, I’m gonna need you to sit down and listen to me telling you all about how you’re much more capable than you give yourself credit for.”

Claire groaned loudly and let go of her dog’s collar as she turned around to sit in front of the letters.

“Fine,” she puffed. “But you have to promise not to get too excited.”

Castiel sat on the armchair next to her and did his best to keep his face inexpressive as Claire ripped opened the first letter. He knew there was a possibility that at least one of them would be a rejection, but Claire’s face revealed nothing while she read and put it down. She took the next one and did the same, and again until the four of them were displayed in front of her. Castiel restrained himself from stretching his neck and trying to read what they said.

“Well?”

Claire sighed and leaned back on the couch.

“Well, I guess three out of four ain’t so bad,” she commented.

“That’s amazing! Which one you got accepted in?” Castiel asked, finally leaning over the letters. It soon became obvious he had misunderstood what she meant. “You got accepted in three of them?”

“I don’t know how. Like I said, I wasn’t even trying…”

The next negative and cynical thing that Claire was going to say got drowned when Castiel put his arms around her and pulled her in for a hug.

“I am so proud of you!” he exclaimed. He moved back and brushed a lock of hair from her face. “Claire, you’re just… this is wonderful. Congratulations!”

“Thanks.” Claire brushed her hair out from her face and tucked it behind her ear, with an awkward little smile on her lips. It was clear she felt pleased with the result, but she was leaving the emotional outbursts to Castiel. “I guess all I would have to figure out how to afford these places without putting myself in crippling debt…”

“That’s not a problem.” Castiel sat back down and smiled at her. “Your parents left you a college fund…”

“I know, but probably nobody touched it for years…”

“… and I added their life insurances and some of my own savings to it, too,” Castiel continued.

Claire stared at him, stunned. In all the years since her parent’s passing, she probably had never wondered about those details or assumed that Castiel had spent it already in her care.

“But what if I don’t go…?”

“That money is still yours, Claire,” Castiel told her. “It’s for you to start your life and invest in your future, whatever this future might be. Jimmy and Amelia… they wanted you to be happy, and that’s the exact same thing that I want for you.”

Claire said nothing for several seconds. She lowered her eyes to the letters and then raised them up again at Castiel. Her lower lip trembled ever so slightly as she gasped for air and tries to speak:

“Thank you…”

Castiel hugged her again and pretended not to hear her sobs. He knew Claire would have been greatly insulted if he did otherwise.

 

* * *

 

Tom was very vocal about what he thought of their means of transportation to arrive to the Kentucky Derby.

“We’re not paupers. We could've afforded plane tickets,” he kept insisting even as they were already loading up Castiel’s car and getting ready for the trip.

“But where would be the fun in that?” Meg asked. “Besides, with the four of us taking turns, we shouldn’t need to make so many stops.”

“The four of us?” Claire inquired, with a twinkle in her eye. “Does that mean I get to drive on the highway?”

Castiel groaned. It was already bad enough that she was skipping two entire days of school to go with them, because Meg had insisted they should travel a day before she could be well-rested for literally the most important race they had run so far. Claire had reminded them that Meg had promised to take her with them for the Derby, and when Castiel expressed his doubts about it, she argued that it was still her birthday week and that she deserved it since she had got accepted to three different colleges.

It had been really hard to argue when Meg had refused to back down from her promise.

“The kid should see this,” she’d say, shrugging. “If she’s gonna be running races like this, she needs to start getting acquainted with the circuit.”

Claire still hadn’t given her an answer, but Meg acted as if it was a fact that she would choose to become a jockey. Castiel knew that sometimes Meg’s confidence nothing but a mask, but in this case, she seemed absolutely convinced. Or maybe it was because Tom kept calling her decisions into question. Meg had told Castiel he didn’t think that Claire had the right body to be a jockey.

“What does that mean…?”

“He thinks she’s too fat,” Meg had explained, bluntly. “And yeah, she might not be in the typical shape right now, but that’s nothing some diet and exercise can’t fix. So I told him to go to hell.”

Castiel had noticed this was also something that happened with Tom a lot: he didn’t talk to him, Benny or Andrea. He didn’t come downstairs to share dinner with them and usually he just groaned or complained whenever he came to help in the stables. As a result, Castiel couldn’t say he had really had a full conversation with his other boss and his girlfriend’s brother in the month he had been living in the ranch. At least not one where they hadn’t stepped on each other’s toes.

And now they were about to spend twelve hours together in a car. That should be interested.

“I made you some sandwiches for the road and natural juice,” Andrea said, handing them a cooler and a couple of thermos. “Don’t forget to stop every few hours for a bathroom break.”

“Have a nice trip, boss,” Benny added after he closed the car’s trunk. “We’ll be rooting for you here.”

“You better, or you’re both fired,” Meg replied, humorously.

Andrea kissed everyone except Tom in both cheeks “for good luck” and Benny hugged Meg and shook Castiel’s hand. He also made a point to ignore Tom. Neither of them seemed particularly fond of him either and Tom made no effort whatsoever to endear himself to anybody.

For starters, right now he had taken over the passenger seat while they all said their goodbyes and he shot Castiel a defiant look, as if he was daring him to tell him to get in the backseat.

“We’ll change in the first gas station,” Meg said with a shrug and slid on the back seat along with Claire.

“I suppose you’re going to help me with the navigation?” Castiel asked once he was behind the wheel.

Tom stared at him as he couldn’t believe that he would ask such a stupid question. He took out his cellphone, typed something on it and them left it on the dashboard. Castiel saw the red dot that signaled the ranch’s position and the blue arrow indicating him where he was supposed to go. Tom turned his back on him and settled down to sleep. Castiel was reminded clearly of the first ever road trip he went onto with Meg. He glanced at the backseat, but Claire was showing something to Meg in her phone and they were both giggling. He would not receive any sort of help from them.

Sighing, he resigned to what was clearly going to be a very lonely trip and turned on the engine.

Tom remained in hostile silence when they stopped in the first gas station, only groaning affirmatively when Meg asked him if he wanted a coffee as well. He leaned against the car’s hood to drink it, glaring at anyone who walked by like an angry dog ready to bite them if they got too close.

“What’s his deal?” Claire asked. She was drinking her coffee inside the shop along with Meg and Castiel.

“He’s not a big fan of road trips,” Meg explained, with a shrug.

“Why did he come then?” Claire continued. It was the next logical question, but Castiel wouldn’t have made it so directly if it had been up to him.

“Beats me. If he was so kin on flying, he could’ve done that and we would be having fun singing some songs for the road.”

“We never do that,” Castiel pointed out.

“Yes, but as far as he knows.” Meg finished her coffee in one long gulp and threw away her plastic cup. “Come on, I’m driving next and you can have a short nap until the caffeine kicks in, Clarence.”

Claire wasn’t as inclined to share whatever entertainment she had on her phone with him, preferring to scurry away in her corner of the backseat and ignore him as soon as they were back on the highway. Castiel leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. He didn’t really fall asleep, but his mind drifted away to a place of numbness and quiet, interrupted only by the engine’s purring and the occasional car passing by them.

“How are you holding up?”

The question came as it from far away. Castiel recognized Tom’s voice and realized with a startle he was trying to check on Meg. He had waited until he thought they were alone in the car to do it, for reasons that escaped him, but that was the least relevant part.

“What do you mean?” Meg asked, in the same tone of voice Castiel had come to learn meant she was feigning indifference.

“It’s the Derby, Meg. You’ve been dreaming about it for ages. We finally have a shot. I can't imagine that’s good for your anxiety.”

“Yeah.” Meg’s tone got slightly lower. “Could’ve had this chance much earlier if you hadn’t fucked up so royally, though. Just putting it out there.”

Tom huffed. “Are we really going to do this right now?”

“Well, you’ve been pretty much avoiding me for the entire month, except to tell how you thought Castiel and I were doing everything wrong,” Meg replied. “So… when else are we going to?”

Tom said nothing to this. Whatever he was trying to get from this conversation with Meg, he must have figured it wasn’t worth it all the reproaches she was rightfully about to unleash on him.

But Meg wasn’t done.

“I saw Ruby, in the last couple of races,” she pointed out. “Did you know she’s working for Crowley now?”

“She is?” Tom sounded genuinely surprised, or at least, he gave a good impression of being so. “Why would she…?”

“Because Crowley has a knack for knowing how to get to me,” Meg replied. Her voice was cutting like a whip in the air. “He knew, for example, that I wouldn’t be able to turn you down if you decided to suddenly come back and play the prodigal brother.”

The long silence that followed was ominous enough that Castiel opened one eye tentatively, but he was unable to determine what the situation on the front seats was.

“What?” Tom said in the end. “You really think I would…?”

“I don’t know, Tom,” Meg interrupted him. “I really don’t know what you’re capable of. Three years ago I would have told everyone you wouldn’t be able to cheat on Ruby or scam your own sister, but here we are.”

“Is that why you’ve been so weird about me being around the horses? Sending Benny to keep an eye on me all the time?”

Meg didn’t even try to deny that was exactly what she had been doing.

“I know you, Tom. You’re in it for the money and that’s fine. But you’re an idiot if you think I’m just gonna let Crowley take over the ranch without a fight.”

“So you don’t trust me at all.” Tom huffed. Meg remained silent again, as that was all that Tom needed to know. “Okay. That’s fair. Before you kick me out of the car, though, you should know some things about Crowley that I…”

“I don’t need to know anything about Crowley, other than he’s smarmy dick,” Meg cut him off. “And you don’t need to know anything about me, except that I’m gonna win this race and the next one and the next. I’m gonna keep going no matter what he or you or Ruby do, you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.” Tom made a pause, and then slowly added: “Not like I expected anything different from you, sis.”

Meg didn’t find it necessary to answer to that. She had said her piece and that was enough for her.

But Castiel had taken note of something very interesting Tom had said. Meg might not have been interested in finding anything about Crowley, but Castiel definitely was.

 

* * *

 

They arrived late in the afternoon and they had to dissuade Meg to try to sneak into the stables to see if _Morningstar_ had arrived okay.

“The company has informed us that they left him there safe and sound and you called Churchill Downs two hours ago to double check,” Castiel pointed out. “He will be there in the morning when you go see him.”

“Besides, I’m hungry,” Claire complained.

“You ate three bags of snacks on the way here!”

“Yes, exactly. _Snacks_.” Claire arched an eyebrow towards him, as to indicate that she couldn't believe he wasn't understanding this. "Now I want some actual food."

Castiel sighed deeply, but apparently, Claire's attitude was enough to get Meg to giggle a little bit. She picked up her bag from the open trunk and hanged it from her shoulder.

"Alright, I guess we'll go upstairs and freshen up a little bit. And then we can go get dinner."

Claire shot a smug look to Castiel and also picked up her bag to follow Meg. Tom was already on the reception, handling their check-ins.

"Two individuals and a double room," he said, handing them the cards. "You surprise me, Meg. Usually you hated having someone sleep with you the night before a race. Something about having to get a good rest and all."

"Well, it's not the night before a race," Meg pointed out. "And also, Castiel's my lucky charm. I'm not letting him out of my sight."

She patted Castiel on the butt when she walked past him. Castiel jolted and then thanked the heavens that Claire was already on the way to the elevators. Tom stared at him for a moment, but said nothing from the moment he picked up his bag until he opened the door to his room and disappeared inside.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Meg announced, as she moved her head from one side to another.

"You have thirty minutes to join me or I'm ordering room service and you're going to pay for it," Claire threatened them. "So you better hurry the fuck up."

She slammed the door firmly as if to punctuate her statement.

"She knows how to get her point across, huh?" Meg laughed.

"I'm really sorry about her," Castiel sighed, entering the room and leaving their bags on the bed. "She gets cranky when she hasn't eaten."

Meg stopped midway to the shower and crooked an eyebrow. The invitation was very clear, but Castiel fussed around the room, pretending to ignore it.

"Are you coming with me or what?" Meg asked after a few seconds.

"You heard Claire. We can't waste any time," Castiel replied, with a smile. "You go ahead and I'll shower when we come back from dinner."

"Alright. But at least change your shirt before we do," Meg warned him.

Castiel did this, while listening carefully to the sounds of the bathroom. Once he heard the shower running, he finished buttoning up his fresh shirt quickly and left the room making as little noise as possible.

He didn't know why he had lied to Meg about this or why he was being so secretive. It was only a conversation that he wanted to have, after all, but Meg had made it very clear she didn't trust Tom. And to be honest, he had no reason to trust him either or believe that anything he said was true. He still knocked on his room's door and waited for him to open up.

Tom once again wasn't wearing a shirt. Castiel wanted to believe that it was due to him being on his way to the shower and not because he just felt more comfortable being semi-naked all the time, but he didn't know the man enough to tell for sure.

"Yes?" Tom asked, tilting his head at him.

"I was... wondering if you would be joining us for dinner," Castiel said.

Tom's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Well, that's generous of you," he said. If there was sarcasm in that sentence, it was almost too subtle for Castiel to detect it. "But, uh, no. I'm gonna order a pay-per-view and jerk off."

"I didn't need that information," Castiel groaned. "I was trying to be nice."

The edge of Tom's lips twitched. It was obvious that Castiel's uncomfortableness amused him and that might have been the reason he so crudely disclosed his plans for the evening. Castiel tried to remain unfazed.

"Yeah, well... thanks, I guess, but I don't wanna ruin the vibe you got going there," Tom admitted.

"What vibe?"

"You, Meg and your daughter?"

"My niece," Castiel corrected.

"Yeah, whatever. Meg's obviously happy to play house with the two of you and I'm not about to get in the middle of that." Tom shrugged. "She probably doesn't want me to and right now, I should be trying to not step on her toes too much."

Castiel had nothing to argue against that. He realized that conversation was quickly dying, so he needed to get to the point. He opened his mouth, but Tom spoke again:

"It's weird, you know? Of all the things that'd happened this year, that has to be the weirdest one. Meg doesn't usually do serious relationships and well... I can't say that I know what she sees in you."

Castiel said nothing to this. He also sometimes wondered about this. He wondered if Meg had fallen on bed with him because he was there and it was convenient for her. If she had agreed to live with him and asked to train Claire because she needed him to keep her ranch going or if it was because he genuinely wanted him. If she merely tolerated his feelings towards her or if she reciprocated them, even if it was a little bit.

Usually, he managed to shove those thoughts to the back of his head and convince himself to leave good enough alone. He could talk to Meg about his insecurities when there weren't more urgent business for them. Which might be never, but Castiel was fine with that schedule.

"I wouldn't know either," he said simply. He cleared his throat and cut to the chase: "I actually... wanted to speak with you."

"Really? Because I've had the impression that you were doing everything in your power to ignore the fact I exist."

"You're not entirely wrong," Castiel confessed. "But earlier, in the car... I heard you said you knew something about Crowley?"

Tom shifted his position and crossed his arms across his chest. The look in his eyes ooze with suspicion.

"Did Meg send you to ask me this?"

"No. I came here because I want to know what it is," Castiel said. He hoped Tom believed that he was telling the truth, because he really was. "Meg thinks she can win her duel with him just by beating his horse in all the races and making enough money to keep the ranch. And while it is important that she does that... well, it might not be enough to endear herself to the people of the town, and while they're on his side, Crowley will continue to pester her."

"So you're trying to, what? Know her enemy?" Tom asked.

"Essentially." Castiel nodded. "Since you've got direct dealings with him, I would think that he said something that convinced you that Meg's approach is going to be more lucrative in the long term than his."

Tom bit the inside of his cheek, as if he was reflecting.

"Yeah. The guy's not as smart as he would have everyone believe."

He looked around, made sure that the hallway was empty and then beckoned Castiel to come inside the room. He offered him a drink from the mini-bar and when Castiel rejected it, he shrugged and fixed himself one anyway.

“Well,” he muttered as he plopped down on the armchair. “Where do I start?”


	37. Good Fortune

For someone who repeated over and over that she needed to rest before the race, Meg seemed hell-bent on doing the opposite of that. Castiel woke up at nine on Friday to an empty bed and a note announcing that Meg had gone to the hotel’s gym, telling him he should go have breakfast without her. By the time he finished showering and dressing up, it was almost ten. He knocked on Claire’s door to see if she was up and wanted to have breakfast with him, but she didn’t answer the door at all. Thinking she was probably still asleep, Castiel made his way to the buffet by himself.

He was surprised to find both his girlfriend and his niece there, sharing a table near the window. They were all both wearing gym clothes and sipping water. Well, Meg was: Claire seemed to have passed out on the table, with her face buried in her arms and her mint green headphones around her neck, the cable tangled in her blonde ponytail.

“It gets easier every day,” Meg was telling her. “But you have to do it every day. Now, you need to hydrate.”

Claire let out a groan as she lifted up her head, stretched her hand to try to grab the bottle of water, but since it was two millimeters out of her reach, she groaned again and went back to her previous position.

“You went to the gym?” Castiel asked, sitting on the table with them.

“She said she would go easy on me,” Claire bemoaned. “She _lied_.”

“Well, it’s not my fault your horse has been doing all your exercise for you lately,” Meg said, with a smug smile.

“And you really think I’m gonna be a jockey at this rate?” Claire asked, shooting Meg a skeptic look.

Meg shrugged again, but turned her attention towards Castiel.

“My friend Pamela is in town, you remember her? From the Breeder’s Cup? She asked me to meet up with her for lunch, and this time, you’re coming with me.” She stood up, left a quick peck on the side of Castiel’s lips and happily strutted towards the elevator.

“Did you have fun?” Castiel asked Claire. She glared at him and he figured the question hadn’t been the smartest he could ask. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Dude, I can barely move,” Claire said. She pushed the chair backwards with a moan of pain, stood up biting her lips as if she was making a monumental effort and picked up the bottle of water. “I’m gonna take a shower and then hide under the covers until the sun goes away.”

“Okay, call me if you need anything.”

Claire left with more demonstrations of how tired and in pain she was. It was almost funny, but Castiel was proud of her for getting up early and actually doing it. He made a mental note to tell her this the next time they met.

Tom came downstairs when Castiel was still halfway into his coffee and eggs. He glanced in his direction but said nothing as he headed for the door and left to do God knew what. Castiel paid no mind to him. He had already got the information he needed. The question was what he could do with it now.

Meg came down half an hour later. Instead of the riding breeches and shirt he was used to seeing her in every day, she was wearing tight jeans, a violet blouse and a black leather jacket. She had washed her hair and let her wet locks fall over her shoulders, already forming loose curls on it, and she’d applied just a little bit of makeup on her lips and eyes. Castiel found himself staring and beaming at her as she approached his table.

“What?” she asked him.

“You look beautiful today.”

“Just today? Why not every day?”

He didn’t have time to come up with a reply, though. She grabbed him by the lapels of his shirt and made him stand up to give her a hungry kiss. Castiel gently put a hand on her waist and laughed when they broke apart.

“Of course. You look beautiful every day.”

“That’s how I like it,” Meg said, patting him in the cheek. “Come on now. With the traffic there’s going to be, we might as well leave now.”

She wasn’t wrong. Louisville was flooded with people that had come to see the Derby day and more were expected to arrive that day before sundown. At least that was what the radio informed them while they were stuck on traffic on the way to the restaurant. But with a radiant day and blue skies on the horizon and Meg’s hand on his knee, Castiel found it hard to care.

Pamela was waiting for them on the restaurant’s lobby, also wearing jeans and a jacket along with the black shades that covered her eyes. She lifted up her head when she heard Meg calling for them and stood up with the help of the woman sitting by her side.

“Hello, there, darling,” she said, grabbing Meg’s forearm and kissing her in both cheeks. “You look great!”

Meg laughed at the joke and complimented her on her shades.

“This is Castiel, my trainer and my boyfriend. I don’t think I introduced him to you last time.”

“Ah, so you’re the guy,” Pamela said. She also grabbed him by the forearm with one hand while shaking his with the other. “Are you hot? Anna, can you tell me if he’s hot?”

“He’s… good looking,” Anna, the woman who was with her, informed her.

“I’ll trust your criteria, love. Word around town is that I’ve got a fiery redhead with me,” Pamela said, snaking an arm around Anna’s waist. “Have I’ve been lied to, Meggy?”

Anna indeed had deep red hair and big green eyes. She laughed as Meg gave her an appreciative look and a nod.

“You haven’t. Congratulations to you, Pam. You can still spot the cutest girl in the room, eyes or no eyes,” Meg told her.

Pamela found the joke hilarious. Clearly the two had more story than Meg had let on, as they began chatting away happily as the maître guided them to their table.

“And how’s your brother?”

“He’s… he actually came to watch the race,” Meg said. She tried to make it sound like she was happy about it, but even Anna, who had just met her, realized that she was bluffing.

“So the rumors about the two of you splitting the ranch are unfounded?”

Meg slowly put her menu down.

“I’m sorry, what did you say you did for a living again?”

“I’m… I’m a journalist,” Anna said. “For _The Golden Horseshoe_.”

Castiel had seen that magazine around in all the racing tracks they had been to, along with the likes of _Gallop_ and _American Racing_. Meg leaned back a little in her chair, narrowing her eyes at Anna with suspicion.

“Yes, she is, and she promised to behave and not try to interview you,” Pamela admonished her.

“I’m sorry,” Anna said, with an embarrassed smile. “It’s hard to turn it off sometimes.”

“Yeah, well… everything I’m going to say here is off the record,” Meg said. “Just so we’re clear.”

Anna lifted her hands in full surrender to that condition.

The lunch went without a hitch after that, even though neither Anna nor Castiel had much to contribute to the conversation between the two old friends. Meg talked about _Morningstar_ , who they were going to see that afternoon and how excited she was to finally be running the Derby. No one was going to that night’s gala, because Meg “didn’t want to be trapped in a room full of idiot snobs” and Pamela had a doctor appointment that afternoon.

Meg’s smile turned into a frown of concern almost instantly.

“Pam, is everything okay?”

“Yes, dear, it’s just my annual checkup,” Pamela replied, resting importance to the issue with a gesture of her hand. “I didn’t let them rip both my eyes so cancer can sneak up on me again.”

The chat dimmed for a few seconds afterwards, but it picked back up again with the desserts. Pamela asked Meg to escort her to the bathroom and Meg agreed immediately, guiding her around the tables while Pamela felt around with her cane. Anna and Castiel exchanged an uncomfortable look.

“Well… do I have to clarify everything I say is off the record too?” Castiel asked.

Anna chuckled. “No, there’s no need. I know Pamela thinks I’m only dating her for the exclusives, but that’s… she really is great.”

“I’ve heard.” Castiel nodded.

Anna took one last sip of her glass of water and leaned in as she wanted to confide a secret on Castiel.

“Sometimes it’s torture, though. I am in direct contact with all the horses and the owners and I hear all sorts of juicy gossip… and I can use none of it because if she finds out…”

“Must be hard,” Castiel offered.

“Listen to me. You must think like I’m whining.” Anna sighed. “Having to balance my relationship and my career when I’m seeing someone from the circuit can be a challenge, you know?”

“No, I… actually, I do know,” Castiel said. “I’m technically dating my boss.”

Anna arched an eyebrow at him and then burst into laughter.

“That’s gold,” she commented, between giggles. “I actually have been meaning on writing a story on you guys. I might do it, if you win tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Castiel tilted his head. “What would you write?”

“Just how impressive it is that the Morningstar ranch bounced back from their its streak, her winning with a descendant from a former champion. That sort of stuff. Horseracing aficionados love a good narrative like that.”

“Is that so?” Castiel asked. The wheels on the back of his head were turning and forming a plan. But he needed to act quickly, before Pamela and Meg returned from the bathroom. “Will you mention in your story that one of the other horses competing also has an owner from Northeast Haven? The two of them running against each other would make for a very interesting narrative, in my opinion.”

Anna’s ears perked up.

“Is that so?”

“Fergus Crowley. He’s the owner of _Lady Rowena_ ,” Castiel informed her.

“I know about him. I didn’t know he also came from the same town as Meg and her brother…”

“Well, he doesn’t exactly come from there, but he does have some businesses in it.” Castiel made a dramatic pause, as if he was seriously considering whether he should say the next thing or not. “There’s actually some very ‘juicy gossip’, as you so eloquently put it, surrounding him…”

“Stop.” Anna raised a hand, as if that would physically shut Castiel up. “Listen, I told you I’m frustrated as hell about not being able to write about this…”

“You’re concerned that the stories can be attributed to Pamela’s connections. I am not one of those,” Castiel said. “And in any case, what I can offer you are just rumors that can be considered the tip of an iceberg. I would think a journalist such as yourself would have the will and the means to go deeper.”

Anna stuck her chin up in the air and leaned back on the chair.

“If you’re trying to sell me rotten fish to discredit your opponent…”

“I’m doing no such thing,” Castiel assured her, although he could see why she would think that. “I am absolutely certain that Meg can defeat Crowley and every other horse fair and square. She doesn’t need that sort of tactics.”

“Then why…?”

“Meg and Crowley are also rivals outside the racing track. And that is the aspect that worries me. She doesn’t know about the information I have and if she did, I’m not sure if she would relate it to you. So, as you see, this cannot be traced back to your relationship with Pamela. Not directly, at least, if you agree to keep me as anonymous informant.”

Anna stayed quiet for a very long time, her eyes studying Castiel as if she was trying to determine if he was lying or not. But she also seemed to realize that this conversation would be over the second Pamela and Meg came back. She opened her bag and put a pen on the table.

“I will double check everything you give me,” she warned him. “So this better be good.”

Castiel hastily scribbled down some of the things Tom had said it on a napkin and slid it towards Anna. She carefully folded the napkin and put away right as Pamela and Meg were approaching them.

“Well, do you have time for coffee or do you have to go check on that horse of yours?”

They ended up leaving the restaurant later than they intended and stuck in traffic again on the way to Churchill Downs.

“What did you talk about with Anna while we were gone?”

“Nothing much. She seems like a very hardworking woman,” Castiel lied with a shrug. “What did you and Pamela talk about?”

“Just… stuff.”

Castiel didn’t feel bad about being as vague as he had been. He went to turn the radio on, but Meg surprised him by adding a bit of information he wasn’t expecting:

“We were… involved, she and I. For a little while. It wasn’t that serious.”

“Oh. Okay…?” Castiel muttered.

“We had a falling out and we didn’t talk for like a year. Then she found out she was going to go blind, she got scared and she called me. We’ve been good friends ever since. Just friends. Nothing else.”

“W-why are you telling me this?” Castiel asked, resisting the urge to rotate on his seat and look at her directly.

“I don’t know. I just thought that you should know,” Meg replied. “You were honest with me about your relationship with Daphne. Does it bother you?”

“Why would it?”

Meg took her time to answer while Castiel changed lanes to try to avoid the jam.

“Well… don’t you want to know?” she asked in the end.

“I… I don’t care about your past relationships, Meg,” Castiel said. “What matters is that you’re with me now.”

That affirmation was received with stunned silence. Castiel used the few moments a red light gave him to look at Meg: she was staring at him with eyes wide open and her lips parted, as if she was trying to come up with an answer and failing to do so. He frowned.

“Why is that surprising?”

“It… it just _is_ ,” Meg replied. “Every time I’ve dated a guy, they’ve always wanted to know with how many girls I’ve been, with how many guys… if I would be open to having a threesome…”

“Do you… want to have a threesome?” Castiel asked, confused and a little bit scared as he started the car again. Was their sex life so boring that Meg was looking for alternatives already?

Meg huffed and rolled her eyes. “Hell, no. They’re highly overrated, trust me.”

“Okay.” Castiel tried not to dwell on the implications of that comment too much and moved on to the next thing that bothered him: “Why are you bringing this up, then?”

“I don’t know. It’s just so weird to me that you’re not the one bringing it up I thought… because when it comes to having that conversation it always… it’s just… it never turns out okay.”

The parking lot of Churchill Downs was pretty full and Castiel figured the following day would be worse. He took a mental note that they should be there early and stopped the car in the first free spot he found.

“You thought the best defense was an attack,” he said. “That by you being the one who started the conversation you would be able to control its results this time around.”

Meg’s shoulders relaxed and she closed her eyes, as if she was unloading a very heavy burden.

“Essentially.”

“But it makes no difference to me, Meg,” Castiel said. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it so she would know he was telling the truth. “You are who you are and it’s not like I expect you to not have a past.”

“Goddammit,” Meg muttered. She looked away and placed her fingers over her mouth, pensively. Castiel waited for her to speak again.

“Why does it bother you that it doesn’t bother me?” he asked when the silence went on for too long. Since Meg showed no signs of even having heard the question, Castiel changed the topic: “Do you think perhaps, since this is a very delicate topic for you, we could talk about it at some other time? Perhaps you’re not in the right… emotional mind frame for it.”

At least this time she looked at him as she spoke:

“You mean because of the Derby? Nah. Strangely enough, I’m not too worried about that.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Castiel frowned. Meg’s nervous energy was always an issue before a race. Was she lying so he wouldn’t worry about her?

She shook her head, as if she had heard that question.

“Me too,” she admitted. “But… I spent so many years wanting to compete in this legendary race, promising Dad and Grandpa that one day I would take them there. And now it’s finally happening tomorrow and it’s… it’s not how I imagined it.”

“Is it worse?” Castiel asked. “Better?”

“Just… different.” Meg bit her thumb, as if that would help the words to explain herself better come to her mouth. “If my Dad or worse, my Grandpa, were here I’d be climbing the walls. I would be worried that I’d lose, that I’d let them down. But they’re not here. It’s just me. And Tom, I guess, but I don’t really care about letting _him_ down.” She tapped her fingers against the dashboard, as if she was reflecting on how to continue that thought. “Now the only person I would be letting down if I lose tomorrow is myself.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“It should, but no. Not really,” Meg admitted, turning her face towards Castiel and smirking at him. “I guess I’m not scared anymore. Even if I lose tomorrow, we had a good season. We can still figure out some way to make enough money to keep the ranch going. I know this. And I know that you will be there.” She leaned towards him and pulled from his shirt so his face was closer to hers. “I guess that’s why the idea of you walking away scares me more than the damned race.”

Castiel’s heart thrummed in his chest. Meg rarely let him know how much he meant to her and that she was doing it now…

“You have to work on your poker face,” Meg pointed out. “I can totally tell what you’re thinking, you know?”

“I love you.”

“Figures,” Meg chuckled as if she had just won a bet with herself and closed the space between the two to give him a kiss.

 _Morningstar_ looked as dignified and imposing as usual. He neighed at them and shook his hair as if he was protesting the fact they hadn’t come to see him earlier.

“Alright, you big, dumb baby,” Meg told him, patting him in the muzzle. “Tomorrow’s the big one. Are you ready?”

 _Morningstar_ glared at her, offended that she would even have to ask.

“You know, I would tell you we’re gonna make our Grandpas proud, but that’s a load of bullshit,” Meg continued. “I’m already proud of you and that’s what matters, champ.”

Castiel, leaning against the stable’s wall, let out a soft chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Meg asked, turning towards him.

“When I just got to the ranch, you asked me if I was in the use of talking to the horses,” he reminded her. “And now you’re giving him a full on inspirational speech.”

“Cas, come on. I was messing with you. Everybody talks to their horses,” Meg pointed out, rolling her eyes a little bit. “The thing is whether or not they’re stubborn enough to listen to what you’re telling them.”

“I think he’s listening,” Castiel said, walking towards _Morningstar_ as well and standing in front of him. “I really think he is.”

 

* * *

 

 

Claire yawned and complained the following day when they woke her up far too early for her taste. But she was forced to bite her own tongue when she saw just how many people had congregated around the race track. The parking lot was a mess and the only way Castiel convinced them they should be allowed in was by presenting proof that they were actually participating in the race. It was barely midday and the race wouldn’t be run until later in the afternoon. She was given permission to walk around and see what was up, but the place was enormous and there was so much people she only bought a hot dog for lunch and pair of binoculars before returning to the stables to watch Castiel and Meg make _Morningstar_ do warm up exercises.

“Are you kidding me? Why didn’t you tell me I had to dress like that?” she groaned, pointing at the elegantly dressed men and women in the public. She suddenly felt terribly inadequate in her ripped jeans and shirt with the face of Pinhead in it.

“’Cause you don’t have to dress like that,” Castiel replied, as he adjusted the cinch of _Morningstar_ ’s chair. “It’s traditional, but it’s not obligatory.”

He and Tom also hadn’t dressed up, both of them in their simple slacks and shirt. Tom had even added a leather jacket, even though it was an excessively warm Saturday outside. Claire eyed him as he looked for something inside the white plastic bag he had brought along and held close to his chest during the drive to the track.

“Here,” he said, handing Claire a large hat. It was blue and have some feathers and pearls on the side. “It’ll help you blend in.”

Claire looked down at her clothes, but instead of saying she seriously doubted that, she grabbed it. It was weird that he had got her something like that, and even weirder when he next extracted something else for her uncle.

“We’ll have to buy another one when they add _Morningstar_ ’s name to it,” he commented. “But it should be good for our drinks today.”

“Oh,” Castiel muttered, looking at the glass as if he had never seen one. It had a list of names on the side and what appeared to be a jockey hat on the other. “Thank you.”

Meg came back in her full jockey clothes before they had time to add anything else.

“What’s the word?” she asked them as she began looking at Morningstar’s bridle and saddle, even though Castiel had already checked it.

“Your brother’s giving us gifts,” Claire said, because she couldn’t be the only one who find it weird, could it?

Meg stopped what she was doing and turned towards Tom with a frown. Tom ignored the Novaks and took out one last item from his plastic bag.

“Here,” he said, extending it to Meg. “For luck.”

It was a keychain in the form of a horse. As far as gifts went, it wasn’t too impressive, but that when Claire looked at it closely, she noticed the plastic horse was completely black, except for a single white spot in his forehead.

“Is that the Hell Horse?” she asked.

“It’s _Morningstar_. The first one,” Tom explained.

Meg’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Where did you get it?”

“The museum’s gift shop.” Tom smiled, clearly proud of himself. Meg continued to look at it without saying a word, so her brother began babbling: “You can hang it from your belt or something. I don’t know. If you don’t want it, I can keep it…”

“I’ll take it,” Meg snatched the keychain from his hands and analyzed it closely, as if she wanted to make sure it was really what she thought it was. “I didn’t know they were still making these.”

“They aren’t. I had to make them look for it in the back. I knew they had to have one lying around somewhere. Grandpa had a lot of them at home and he always gave them away, remember? He used to say…”

“… that it was his good fortune immortalized in plastic,” Meg remembered. Despite how ridiculous it sounded, she still smiled at the memory. “He was no poet.”

“Nah, he was a racer.” Tom smiled a put a hand on Meg’s shoulder. “Like you, sis.”

It was strange and more than a little bit awkward. Claire suddenly felt like she was witnessing something very private between two people who had a lot more history than she could comprehend. She looked away at her uncle, who was staring at the Masters siblings and smiling to himself, as if he had understood something.

Whatever it was, it flew over her head, but luckily, the moment ended soon after. Meg tied the plastic horse to her belt as Tom had suggested and hooked her foot to the stirrup.

"I'll see you on the finish line, guys," she said, adjusting her helmet.

"We'll be rooting for you," Castiel said, approaching the horse.

Meg leaned over and gave him a quick kiss before she sank her heels on Morningstar's sides and guided him out of the stables.

Claire felt like she should have said something too, but in the blink of an eye, Meg was out of their sight.

"That was a very nice thing you did," Castiel commented, turning towards his other boss.

"Yeah, well." Tom shrugged. "Let's go. I don't want to miss out the band."

The stands were a lot more crowded than in the previous races that Claire had been at. All around, she saw the women wearing the same hats and headbands with colorful decorations, talking or laughing loudly to make themselves heard over the music playing on the field. It was almost like a party where everybody was having fun and the horseracing was secondary.

There was even alcohol.

"Wanna try some?" Tom offered her, extending his glass that was also inscribed with past winners name towards her. It was filled to the brim with a dark liquor that smell slightly like mint.

"She's not of age to be drinking," Castiel warned him, with a glare.

"She would be in most countries in the world," Tom shot back. "Come on, just a sip. For good luck."

"What is it?" Claire asked, curious.

"Julep. It's a tradition."

"You're not giving my niece alcohol!" Castiel repeated, firmly.

Tom groaned and muttered something about Castiel being a hardass before he turned his attention towards the track.

"But if you want a sip, let me know," Castiel added, in a whisper that wasn't low enough for Tom not to hear it.

"Oh, so it's just wrong when I do it?" he asked, offended.

"Of course. You're a virtual stranger. I am her legal guardian."

Tom let out an offended huff, but he tilted his head when he saw Castiel smirking as he sipped from his glass.

"Wait, did you... are you joking with me?" he asked, blinking at Castiel.

Claire was just as shocked as him. His uncle didn't usually displayed his very particular, very dry sense of humor unless it was with someone he actually had some sort of afinity. She was under the impression he didn't like Tom at all, so this reaction was... unexpected.

"Well, I could say I'm not joking," Castiel replied. "And you could insist that you don't particularly care about the results this race will have on Meg's mood. But we would both be lying."

Tom stared at him and slowly, almost as if he was trying to hold it back, a beam bloomed in his lips.

"Yeah, I just don't like it when she's angry. She can be a total demon."

Castiel chuckled and both men clanked their glasses. They had reached an understanding Claire was clearly excluded from, so she decided to look at the crowd with her binoculars for a while.

"Hey, isn't that the Crowley guy?" she asked.

She had seen him only once and from afar, at Ellen's bar. But he had looked just the same as he did now, wearing a black suit with a red flower on his lapel. He was sitting across the track, on one of the first rows, next to a very pretty brunette woman who was wearing a tight red dress. She looked a bit like a supermodel and Claire wondered why the hell she was with that guy. Even as someone who wasn't into men, she could recognize he wasn't exactly attractive.

"Let me see." Castiel took binoculars and directed them to where Claire pointed. His mouth twisted in a grimace of disgust. "Yes. It's him."

"Well, thank God Meg doesn't know he's here," Tom commented. "She would probably try to run him over with her horse."

"She wouldn't risk it. This race is too important," Castiel answered dryly.

"Yeah," Claire agreed. "But she's going to win."

She said it with total and absolute confidence. Granted, she didn't know much about the racing world (not yet, anyway), but Meg was the best jockey. That was just a fact.

Castiel smiled at her, but it looked much forced than before.

"Let's hope you're right."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

The band suddenly went quiet and a polite applause echoed through the arena. The conductor and the musicians bowed down to the crowd and turned to leave.

"Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to this year's edition to the Kentucky Derby," the commentator said into the microphone. "As always, we want to extend our thanks to our sponsors..."

While he recited the names of several brands and people Claire didn't know, Castiel gulped down the rest of his julep.

"Woah, easy, man," Tom told him. "She's got this. They've got this."

Claire was tempted to ask who he meant by "them", but then remembered that Meg was only half of the team. She really hoped the Hell Horse would behave.

"... and our competitors are now approaching the gate," the announcer said.

Twenty or so horses appeared on the track, two of them were black. Claire easily identified Morningstar by Meg's checkered black and white jacket. Her stomach did a back flip and became an uncomfortable knot, as if her uncle's expectation and nervousness was a contagious virus. The horses took their positions and a man stood on the side of the track, with a pistol in his hand not unlike the one Claire had seen her uncle use during Morningstar’s training.

The entire arena had suddenly gone deadly silent. Claire took off her hat and squeezed it in her hands. She noticed Castiel was clenching his fists over his knees and even Tom, with his usual coolness was leaning forwards.

"Come on, sis," Claire thought he heard him whisper.

The man on the track pointed the pistol at the sky and pulled the trigger.


	38. Mercy

The bang followed by the rumble of the horses' galloping almost made Castiel jump out of his seat. He was far away from them, but through Claire’s binoculars, he felt they were closer than ever.

Two minutes. The race would be determined in just two minutes, a few seconds less if one of the horses proved to be exceptionally fast.

During the first few, tense seconds, they all ran close together, as if they were incapable of getting any advantage from the others. These were the best horses from all the races that had been run in the year, these were the competitors that finally had a chance against a horse as excellent as _Morningstar_.

But those terrible seconds went fast and suddenly, some of the mass of horses and helmets started to separate from the rest, left behind one by one. The announcer was yelling the names of those that there at the top, but the whistling in Castiel’s ear prevented him from hearing him. All he could do was fix his eyes in the checkered black and white jacket and mutter under his breath. The words were half encouragement she couldn’t hear and half a prayer that no one would.

The horses were running almost in a straight line as they approached the first turn, with four of them at the head, one next to the other. Castiel heard people cheering and yelling at them, but he couldn’t make out the words.

 _Morningstar_ was in fifth place, right behind _Lady Rowena_.

He gritted his teeth so tight that his jaw started to ache. They could do more. He knew they could do more. Why wasn’t Meg…?

Almost as if she had heard him, Meg’s whip swung in the air and _Morningstar_ moved to the outside of the cumulus of horses. It was a risky maneuver, because she could cut the horse coming behind her and end up crashing, but _Morningstar_ sped up so fast that they managed to put a safe distance between them.

Now it was only a matter of keeping that place. Castiel’s forehead was wet with sweat as the cloud of dirt around the horses’ legs became bigger and the cheering became louder. One minute. One more minute in the race and there didn’t seem to be a clear winner, with the three at the top running at the same speed…

Things changed in the blink of an eye. The third horse, _Dusty Benji_ , slowed down and in the two seconds that followed, _Morningstar_ and _Rowena_ took advantage of that.

“ _Morningstar the Third_ and _Lady Rowena_ are going head to head now and the rest are trying to catch up! Is it going to be photo finish? Is one of them going to get the advantage? Will this bitter rivals finally decide who’s the best…?”

Castiel saw _Rowena_ ’s jockey waving his whip, mercilessly hitting the mare’s rump. She was stretching her neck and her ears were pressed to her skull. She was giving it all, and so was _Morningstar_ , but he wasn’t displaying the same signs of exhaustion as she was. Not like in the last race.

Meg was trying to tire her rival out, but she didn’t have a lot of time to get to that point, so she started pressing _Morningstar_ to surpass them…

“ _Morningstar_ takes the lead as they’re approaching the finish line…!”

“YES!” Tom shouted at the top of his lungs, waving his fist in the air.

Castiel saw the disaster approaching in slow motion. _Rowena_ moved to the side, as if they were trying to crash against _Morningstar_ ’s hindquarters. He screamed, an inarticulate sound of terror, but _Morningstar_ was faster: he left _Rowena_ behind… so the mare’s impulse took her too far to the left. Her legs slid on the slippery surface and she fell on her side, sliding painfully on the ground. Her jockey flew on the air and landed face first on the mud.

The announcer had stopped talking, too stunned to say anything while the other jockeys made brusque turns to avoid crushing the fallen horse and her rider. A few miles ahead, Meg and _Morningstar_ finally slowed down and turned around to see what the hell was going on.

The track became a chaos as paramedics and vets rushed into the track to aid _Rowena_ and the jockey. People were screaming and jumping on their seats, trying to have a better look at the accident. The mare was thrashing about madly, trying and failing to stand up, while the vets did everything to keep her in place.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the announcer. “Ladies and gentlemen, we beg you to please remain in your seats. We will continue with the event shortly, but please remain calm and let our medical experts handle this situation.”

“What’s going on?” Claire asked. “What’s that syringe they have there?”

Castiel saw it and felt a film of cold sweat running down his back.

“No.” Tom shook his head. “They’re not going to euthanize her. They don’t do that anymore, not without having her checked before.”

All the jockeys had stopped their horses by them, some of them not even bothering to try to make it to the finish line, and were moving away from the site of the accident to avoid having their horses suffering a similar fate. Meg dismounted, gave _Morningstar_ ’s bridle to one of the helpers and ran towards the jockey, who was being carted off in a stretcher. She then talked to the veterinarians, while _Rowena_ slowly calmed down and lied on her side while they worked on her.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am being informed that _Lady Rowena_ is being sedated and taken away for further examination,” the announcer told the crowd that was still shifting in their seats. “In the meantime, let’s please continue and give a great round of applause to the winner of the Kentucky Derby, _Morningstar the Third_!”

The applause that followed was lukewarm. Castiel and Tom exchanged a look and they both stood up.

“Come on,” Castiel told Claire, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“What’s gonna happen to _Rowena_?” Claire asked, looking at them with eyes wide open in fear.

Castiel stared at the place where Crowley had been seated. The woman in the red dress had disappeared, but the businessman was still there, sitting very rigidly with his hands on his knees. Castiel decided not to answer that question. He didn’t want to lie to Claire, but the truth was that it was very likely _Rowena_ wouldn’t make it. And telling her that would’ve just upset his niece.

 

* * *

 

The ceremony was, of course, not as triumphant as it might have been otherwise. They put the mantle of roses on _Morningstar_ and paraded him across the track, they received the congratulations and the trophy from the governor and they posed for the pictures. But as soon as all those rituals were done, nobody mentioned anything about going to a party or drinking champagne. Once they were back in the stables, Meg took off her helmet and untied her hair.

“Where did they take _Rowena_?” she asked. “Does anybody know?”

“Pamela might know,” Castiel suggested. “And if not her, maybe Anna. She’s a journalist, she has ways to find out that sort of thing.”

“Tom, where’s my cellphone?”

Tom took it out of one of his jackets inner pockets and handed it to Meg.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“We are going to see how she is, of course,” Meg said, as if it was obvious while she quickly typed a text on her phone. “In the spirit of fair play.”

“Meg.”

There was a tone of warning in Tom’s voice that confused Castiel. Why was he so concerned about Meg going to see an injured horse that had technically come in second best after them?

“We can party and toast later,” Meg told him. “And you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

Tom sighed deeply.

“No. I’m coming.”

He must have suspected what Meg was planning to do from the beginning, but Castiel, despite having got to know her pretty well, still couldn’t have predicted it. Pamela informed them of the veterinary clinic where they had sent _Rowena_ and without even changing from the clothes she had run the race in, Meg dragged them all there in an impressively short amount of time for the traffic there was on the streets.

The first person they met when they walked in was Ruby. She was still in her tight red dress, but she had taken off her heels and hat. She sat with her face sank in her hands, the very image of despair. When Meg called her name, the trainer stood up and went to hug her and Meg held her tight. As if the harsh words they'd exchanged the last time they saw each other had never been said at all.

“How is she?” Meg asked in a whisper, as if they were talking about a patient that was in critical condition.

“I don’t know,” Ruby said. Her voice sounded coarse, as if she was barely holding back the tears. “They took her in for X-rays, but they weren’t telling me anything and…”

“Okay, okay,” Meg said, guiding Ruby back to the chair and helping her sit down. “Just calm down, Rubes.”

Tom appeared from the left. He had a plastic cup of water in his hand that he extended towards Ruby. His ex-wife stared at him with incredulity and then down at the water.

“I didn’t poison it so I’ll have to stop paying your alimony, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Tom said.

“You’re an idiot,” Ruby mumbled. But she graciously accepted the water and took several gulps of it. “Why are you here? You should be celebrating.”

Meg opened her mouth, but before she could answer that question, the door opened and Pamela entered guided by Anna… and followed closely but Crowley himself. He was still wearing his impeccable black suit attire and had added a black long coat, despite the night outside not being particularly chilly.

“Well, I have just returned from the hospital,” he said, without acknowledging Meg’s or anyone else’s presence. “You’ll be happy to know that Gabriel dear will not be suing me. He took a very philosophical approach to this awful incident and said it was all part of the risks. And asked me to congratulate the winners,” he added, throwing a look of contempt at Meg. “Which I guess I should do. You ran a good race, Meg Masters.”

He extended his hands towards her.

“Crowley,” Meg said. She completely ignored the hand he was offering her and turned to Anna. “I suppose you’re here for your exclusive interview.”

Anna shook her head. “I know this is not the best time. I will meet you tomorrow at your hotel, if that’s fine with you.”

Castiel figured the promise of an interview had been the price Meg had to pay for the information of what clinic they had taken _Rowena_ to. What he still couldn’t understand was why Meg was so interested in the state of her rival’s horse…

But when he lowered his gaze and noticed she still had a hand gripping Ruby’s shoulder tight, it made more sense. Meg wasn’t there for _Rowena_ , she was there for her friend, who had trained the mare and clearly cared a lot about her state. Even despite that friend having essentially stabbed her in the back.

A doctor came into the waiting room with a manila envelope in his hands.

“Mr. Fergus Crowley?” he called. Crowley took a step forwards towards him. “I’m Doctor Banes. I’m afraid I don’t have good news. _Rowena_ ’s left hind leg is indeed broken. She won’t run again.”

Ruby let out a strangled sob at the news. Crowley, however, remained impassible.

“Well, then, I guess there’s nothing to do. It will be sad to part with the girl, but… these things do happen…”

Dr. Banes was taken aback for a moment, but he recovered quickly.

“Mr. Crowley, if _Rowena_ ’s fracture was that bad, she would have been euthanized at the racecourse. The surgeon who was there examined it quickly and made the call to bring her here because he thought there’s a chance she can recover.”

“But if she won’t run,” Crowley interrupted.

“She might have a bit of a limp, but she could walk again with minimal pain,” the doctor explained. “There are treatments that can improve her quality of life enough so that she can have a good retirement…”

“But she won’t run,” Crowley repeated, curtly. “What good is a horse if it can’t run?”

“She could still be a broodmare or…”

“How expensive are these treatments that you speak of?”

Dr. Banes clearly wasn’t expecting this reaction. He looked at all the people gathered in the waiting room as if he was hoping that someone would intervene, but since Crowley was _Rowena_ ’s sole owner, he had the final say in it.

“Well, they won’t be cheap and during the first few months of her recovery, she would need nearly constant attention,” he ended up admitting. “But…”

“There’s nothing to do then,” Crowley said. “Forgive me for being this frank, but I’m simply not willing to put in the effort to save a horse that won’t be able to run.” He made a pause, his beady little eyes staring straight into Dr. Banes. “The best we can do for her is put her to sleep, doctor, and that is what I’m choosing to do.”

“No!” Ruby screamed, jumping from her seat. Castiel was certain she would have jumped on Crowley and outright attacked him if Tom hadn’t held her by the waist. “You bastard! You son of a bitch…!”

“I suggest you control that tongue, dearie, if you want to still have a job after all this ordeal,” Crowley warned her coldly. “There’ll be other horses. This one is useless.”

Dr. Banes stared at Crowley, open-mouthed, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was being told to do.

“Mr. Crowley, you could still sell her…”

“You mean, invest who knows how much money in her recovery and give her away for a fraction of what she cost me?” Crowley replied, with a dismissive gesture. “You might think I’m a monster, but I am simply a business man, and there’s just no way keeping that horse alive will be a smart business decision. And she is my property, I can choose to be rid of it if it will become a financial burden. Now…”

“I’ll buy her.”

Meg’s voice sounded clear and firm. Ruby stopped sobbing to stare at here dumbfounded and Pamela raised her eyebrows above her sunglasses. Even Tom and Castiel were taken aback but her words.

“Meg…” Castiel started, but one look at her face was enough to know that there was nothing he could say to her. She had made up her mind faster that he could come up with an argument to change it again, and even then, he was sure she had thought about all of them before she opened her mouth.

“I hate to see a perfectly good horse killed just because you’re too much of a cheap bastard to put in the effort to care for it,” she said, sharply. Her brown eyes were almost sparkling with fury as she lifted an accusing finger at Crowley. “So I’ll buy her the way she is now and I’ll pay for her treatment.”

Crowley was as shocked as everyone else, but he recovered faster. He closed his mouth and the edge of his mouth twisted in the briefest of smiles before he turned serious once more.

“That’s a very generous offer, Meg, but as your neighbor, I am well aware of your ranch’s financial difficulties. It would be simply irresponsible…”

“Since when do you care about my financial difficulties?” Meg snapped. “I thought you would be happy, since you’re about to cause me some more.”

“I don’t know what I ever did for you to judge me so harshly…”

“Sixty grand,” Meg offered.

Crowley feigned to be thinking about it and Castiel had to tighten his fists not to grab him by the lapels and scream at him to stop pretending. Just like Meg had predicted, Crowley would take this moment to put Meg in as much trouble as he could. Meg was already starting the offer for what she would pay for a healthy broodmare who was ready to have foals right at that moment.

“What do you expect to gain from this, Meg?” Crowley asked. “As you have seen, I don’t care for this horse, so you buying it and it being put down makes no difference for me…”

“Seventy,” Meg replied. “I thought you were trying to minimize your losses. Well, you won’t get a better offer than this.”

“It is very unlikely, but it still doesn’t get me back what I paid for _Rowena_ in the first place, plus all the money I had to invest on her to get her to the Kentucky Derby,” Crowley pointed out.

“Didn’t you say a second ago that it made no difference to you? Aren’t you at least gaining something if you sell her?” Claire asked.

Castiel put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her in closer to him when Crowley’s eyes found her.

“Aren’t you a smart little girl?” Crowley asked with a very unpleasant smile. “You would do well to leave the business to the adults…”

“Name your price,” Meg interrupted him, standing between Crowley’s gaze and Claire. “How much do you want for her?”

Crowley rubbed his chin, pensively, apparently enjoying the suspense he was creating around this issue. For a second, Castiel believed he would name a reasonable price, something that Meg would still be able to pay. That the indubitable damage he would cause just by letting Meg take Rowena would be enough for him. That he would cut his losses and move on from the issue, to wait for another chance to buy the ranch's land.

He forgot that now that Meg was winning races again, there was a chance the ranch would recover after all. Crowley, however, knew this and he was petty enough to take this last opportunity to hurt Meg as much as he could.

"Five," he said in the end. Meg frowned, confused. Crowley grinned and continued: "Five hundred thousands."

Castiel held his breath. It was excessive. Even for a horse that was able to run and had won races, it was too much.

"Bullshit you can ask that!" Tom exclaimed. It was odd to see him so on edge: for what Castiel had seen, his fury usually was cold and detached instead of loud like this. But then it dawned on him that what Crowley was asking for was essentially half of what they had earned at the Derby.

" _Rowena_ is a champion, after all, of the best breed. I have the papers to back it up," Crowley continued, ignoring him. "She would have won this race too, if it wasn't for that unfortunate accident. And in any case, I can ask whatever I please for her."

Ruby had started crying again, as if she understood that the last hope to save _Rowena_ was gone now.

"My horse was in front of her, so she would have got second place at best," Meg argued, but Crowley shrugged.

"None of us in the position to say what would have happened, dear," Crowley said. "I admire your charity, I really do. But unless you're willing to pay what I ask of you..."

"Bastard," Ruby hiccupped again and with reason. Crowley was holding _Rowena_ 's life hostage and demanding an unreasonable ransom, all just to spite Meg.

There was a moment of tense silence in which Meg and Crowley stared at each other. Crowley finally looked away first.

"Well, since this negotiation didn't come to fruition, doctor, I suggest..."

"Fine!"

Crowley once again was taken by surprise, and even Tom was so stunned that he couldn't protest.

"Fine," Meg repeated, in case there was someone who hadn't heard her the first time. She took a step forwards, and wrinkling her nose as if she was about to touch something dirty, she stretched her hand towards Crowley. "You've got a deal."

Crowley shook it with eyes wide open and left walking very rigidly towards the door, as if he hadn't really believed that plan was going to work. It shouldn't have worked. It had been just to upset Meg, he hadn't thought for a second she would accept.

Castiel, instead, figured it was exactly what she would do. And she would, somehow, find a way to take advantage of this. Because in the spiting game, there was really no match for Meg.

"What are you smiling about?!" Tom shouted at him and then turned to Meg. "What were you thinking? Have you gone mad? That is way too much...!"

"I sold _Calypso_ on the winter. The ranch needed another broodmare," Meg replied, shrugging as if she had just taken a completely rational and understandable decision. “So, doc, please make sure to patch her up to go.”

Dr. Banes looked very confused, but he smiled happily and returned to the backroom where they were holding _Rowena_.

"Any other broodmare!" Tom shouted. "You could have bought any other broodmare in the world..."

"Well, I wanted this one," Meg said. Her voice sounded like a whip in the air and Tom couldn't keep arguing with her. "If you don't want to pay for that, fine. I will use my part of the prize and you can have the other. I don't care."

Tom sighed deeply and stared at the ceiling for a moment, as if he was begging for patience to some invisible entity. Meg turned towards Castiel, flat out ignoring her brother.

"I don't think we have enough personnel to care for her, though."

"She will have a very prolonged recovery," Castiel commented, rubbing his chin pensively. "I would barely have time to train the chestnut if you want me to dedicate it all to _Rowena_."

"No, we can't have that," Meg said, shaking her head. "We're gonna need to hire someone that can give all their attention to her." She slowly turned her eyes towards Ruby. “Do you know of anyone who would be up for that job?”

Ruby stared at her, black tears still rolling down her cheeks, ruining her makeup. She stood up and without saying a word, she hugged Meg even tighter than before. It took a moment before she calmed down enough to say.

“I mean… I did just call my boss a bastard, so I might…”

“You’re gonna have to live somewhere in town, though,” Meg pointed out. “’Cause it would be kind of weird if you were to stay in the ranch…”

Tom cursed out loud and palmed his forehead, as if only now it was dawning on him that Meg had just re-hired his ex-wife.

“Well, isn’t this adorable?” Pamela intervened. “Everybody wins.”

Castiel looked at her and noticed that Anna wasn’t by her side, strangely. He hadn’t noticed her leaving, but before they had to miss her too much, she returned red-faced and panting as if she too had just run a race.

“Where were you?” Castiel asked her.

“Oh, just… you know.” Anna shrugged. “You gotta give people the chance to respond when you’re going to write about them.”

Nobody else understood the meaning underneath those words, but Castiel did and couldn’t bite back a smile that had nothing to do with the fact Meg had just saved _Rowena_ ’s life.

 

* * *

 

They agreed to meet hours later to celebrate properly, in a restaurant that stayed open a little later at their request since Meg was the winner of the Kentucky Derby. The chef and staff took selfies with them before regaling them with a full course meal and champagne they insisted there was no need to pay for. Pamela was the first to propose a toast to Meg and _Morningstar_ ’s health.

"Meg, you know you're my dearest friend," she said, holding her glass up above her head. "I know you and I know exactly just how obsessive you can be, just how many things you can sacrifice to get exactly what you want."

Castiel frowned. That didn't sound like a particularly friendly toast, but Meg was laughing out loud, so he assumed there was a joke he was missing.

"So, believe me when I say, there's no one in the world who deserves this more than you do," Pamela concluded. "Cheers, woman! You won the fucking Derby!"

"We won the fucking Derby!" Meg repeated. Ruby and Tom whistled and clapped together, as if they had never fought at all. In such a pleasant and rowdy company, it was easy to forget that their victory had been a little less than perfect.

Castiel allowed Claire half a glass in view of the special occasion.

"Yeah, god forbid if I drink one more drop and become an alcoholic," Claire commented.

"Don't try your luck," Castiel said. "You can have all the soda, you want though."

"Oh, yay," Claire said, not even trying to hide her sarcasm. "Being a famous jockey really has its perk, doesn't it?"

"Being famous is only a part of it, girl," Meg pointed out. "The other part is working hard enough that you feel that you're going to fall apart and still making it to the finish line."

Anna turned her face very slowly at Meg.

"Can I quote that?" she asked.

"Darling, please..." Pamela started, but Meg interrupted her.

"No, that's fine. Let's do this right now," she told Anna. "I was gonna say we wait until tomorrow, but apparently, I'll have an injured horse to take care of at home."

Pamela threw her hands in the air, as if she wanted to distance herself from her girlfriend's haste, but didn't protest anymore. Anna put her phone over the table and started recording.

"Can I start to the very obvious questions?" she said. "How are you feeling right now?"

"At the top of the fucking world!" Meg replied as she poured more champagne into her glass. She told Anna about how running the same race that her grandfather had won many years ago was a dream come true and how she hoped she had made him proud.

Of course, Castiel knew that she was just telling her because the story would make sound more interesting that way. In true, this was Meg's dream and no one else's.

"And to what do you owe your success?"

"Well, you already have the ridiculous quote about hard work," Meg said, rolling her eyes. "And not giving up and slow and steady doesn't win the horserace and blah, blah, blah." She made a pause, as if she was reflecting about her own answer before she continued in a more serious and calmer tone. "But mostly, I owe it to someone who manages to bring out the best in me."

Castiel was surprised when she grabbed his hand and smiled wide at him.

"I wouldn't have made it this far without you," she told him. "Thank you. I love you."

Castiel felt his ears burning. Claire hooted by their side while Ruby and Pamela cooed and commented how cute they were. Tom accused them or trying to give him diabetes.

All of them seemed to have missed out on the fact that it was the first time that she said it. And she had done in a very public place, in front of basically all their friends and family, to an interviewer that would likely put it in writing for posterity.

Suddenly, the restaurant was spinning around him and he was short of breath. Perhaps it was the fact that he was so caught by surprise he didn't know what to say or that his heart had swollen in his chest all of the sudden.

"I own the ranch too, remember?" Tom reminded them.

"Oh, shut up. What have you done for us this past year?"

"Fair," Tom agreed. "Don't quote that," he added, pointing at Anna.

Meg winked her eye at Castiel and he understood he was meant to lighten up the moment.

"I think that's enough of this for you..." he said, gently pushing away the bottle of champagne.

Meg laughed loudly, but she didn't take it back. She was still holding his hand tight whem she leaned over and pressed her forehead against his chest.

"That is beautiful," Anna said, apparently decided to continue her interview before she lost all her intervieewes to alcoholic elation. "So the next question, obviously has to be for you, Castiel. Can I call you Cas?"

"That is the shorten version of my name," he pointed out and it took him a second to understand why everyone was laughing at him.

"What's in store for you next?" she asked. "What's the future for the Wonder Couple of the Kentucky Derby?"

"Well, if you're talking about half of the winning team, perhaps you'd want to direct that question to the horse."

He didn't know why he was making these comments that to him made perfect sense, but seemed to provoke great hilarity in everyone else. Perhaps he, too, had a little too much to drink.

"That's cute," Anna said, with a smile that wasn't as enthusiastic as everyone else's. Castiel tried to be serious and answer her question, but it was hard to concentrate on anything else when Meg's head was still on his shoulder and her words still in his brain.

"More races, I guess," he said. "More victories."

It wasn't a particularly witty reply, but it was the truth.

"The Triple Crown?"

Meg took this one for him. Her smile was all teeth.

"Why the hell not?"


	39. Loose Ends

Claire stared at herself in the mirror, not entirely sure she liked the effect that these high heels had on her feet. Meg had lent them to her, arguing that since she hadn't bought a new dress for prom, she might as well try them out so it would look different enough.

It was weird that she had done that. She had done so many awesome things for Claire already and she still couldn't wrap her head around them. Letting her use those shoes was one of those things a cool older sister would do.

Or a cool aunt. Maybe she should start thinking about Meg in those terms.

In any case, Claire had loved the shoes upon seeing them. They were silver and way too tall and even though Claire had tried them on to make sure they were her size.

There was a time in her life where she liked clothes and shoes and all those things were supposed to like. She wasn't obsessed with them, but she wasn't the constant jean-and-band t-shirts wearer that she had become after her second bout of depression. And when she put those shoes on, she felt a little bit like Cinderella, transforming into the princess that would steal all the glances at the dance. Except she was more likely to want to dance with another princess than with the actual prince, but those were tiny details.

That had been a week before actual prom night. Now that she had to walk down a set of stairs and dance in them, she was having second thoughts. Perhaps it would be better if she went with the lower ones she had worn in the Winter Formal...

"No," she told her reflection, with a severe frown. "You're gonna wear these stupid shoes you love and you're gonna go to that stupid dance and have fun like never before in your life. Because you can do it and because you deserve it."

She didn't know if that whole positive self-talk thing actually worked, but she was ready to give it a try. She took a deep breath, patted _Bilbo_ in the head for good luck and walking as fast as her admittedly very low confidence allowed her, she headed downstairs. She was so busy watching her step and hanging on to the rail for dear life in fear that she would fall and break something that she didn't notice the full on entourage that was waiting for her.

"Oh, my God!" Andrea, as always, was the first one to speak, and she did it loudly and excitedly. "You look so beautiful!"

"It's the same dress..." Claire tried to protest, but Castiel stood up in front of her with a camera ready.

"Let me take a picture? Please?" he requested.

Claire fought against the impulse of fleeing back upstairs and hiding under her bed. She forced out a smile.

"Sure. Do you want me to give you a Tyra Banks pose?"

"I don't know who that is. But just stand there, please," Castiel replied.

Claire extended one of her hands over the rail and put the other on her waist anyway. She should have fet silly or embarrassed of doing something so stupid, but she pushed those thoughts to the back of her head.

"Now one of the two of you," Meg said, extending her hand to grab the camera.

"Can we take one of the three?" Claire asked.

Both Meg and Castiel were stunned enough by that request that Benny had to step in.

"I'll get it, chief."

Castiel passed an arm her shoulders and Meg lassoed her waist. Benny took two pictures in rapid succession and to Claire's relief, they didn't have time to take more. Tom walked into the house, followed by Ben.

"Found this young man lurking around our property," he said.

Ben pulled from his shirt's neck.

"I wasn't lurking, sir. I'm Claire's date."

Tom let out laugh and patted Ben on the back.

"I know you are, kid. It's fine. I guess I'll have to give you the intimidating talk because this spineless excuse of a parental figure won't."

"Ben is a very good friend of Claire's and a responsible young man," Castiel intervened. "I dont' see a reason I should scare him."

"Sure, sure. They're all very responsible until they try to sweet-talk a girl into going with them to the cliffs, aren't they?"

"That's what you used to do," Meg said, rolling her eyes.

"Ben and I are platonic friends," Claire added. She didn't think that Tom would believe her or that it'd matter to him, but she still felt it necessary to clarify that. For her lesbian honor or something.

"That's right. And that's why I brought you a totally platonic corsage," Ben said, showing the little box in his hand.

Tom laughed louder, even though Claire put on the corsage herself and posed next to Ben without even touching him due to Castiel's insistence. She wondered if there was someone who would explain it to him and then decided it was none of his business anyway.

"Are you done? We're going to be late."

"Yes, of course." Castiel walked them to them door and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Have fun."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't," Meg added behind him.

"That leaves a wide margin of error, Aunt Meg."

Claire turned around and climbed down the porch's steps before what she had just said had time to set in with Meg. She did manage to hear Tom's laughter once more before she climbed on the Impala that belonged to Ben's stepdad.

"Why you called her that?" Ben asked her. "Are they engaged or something?"

"No, it was just a... a joke." Claire shook her head. "Doesn't matter, let's just go."

She had to confess that the drive was a lot of fun. They sang rock songs out loud with the windows down (but not too much that the wind would ruin Claire's hair) and honked at passing people on the street just because.

The prom was being held in the school's gym. The roof had finally been repaired thanks to the "generous donation of an anonymous citizen that was very concerned about the infrastructure of the local school". Rumor had it that "concerned citizen" had been Meg, but she had refused to confirm it when Claire had asked a direct question about it. With how much she had hated that the Winter Formal that was held in her property, it was perfectly plausible though.

They arrived relatively early, so they didn't have to stress too much about finding a spot in the parking lot. Ben hurriedly walked around the car and opened the door for her.

"My platonic lady friend," he said, with a very thick British accent as he offered her his hand to help her get out of the car.

"Thank you, my platonically dear sir." Claire's British accent was way worse than his, but Ben found it funny anyway.

"Are you ready?" he asked, offering her his arm.

Claire when to grab it, but a sudden thought stopped her. Ben noticed immediately.

"What is it?"

"I just... I realized that once we walk in there arm in arm and Alexis sees is, she's going to think we're together for sure," she explained. "And it doesn't matter if I tell her the truth or not, she's never going to believe me."

"Oh," Ben muttered. "Have you guys talked at all?"

"She sent me a text congratulating my uncle for the Kentucky Derby win, but I think her mom might have made her send that. I just replied 'Thanks'." Claire leaned against the car. "I'm sorry you got caught up in all my lesbian drama again."

"Hey, maybe it doesn't have to be drama," Ben said. "If it makes you feel better, we can go in separately. I'll try not to make an entrance so spectacular that you'll feel too bad for not being on the same level."

That managed to make Claire laugh again.

"Damn. I don't deserve a friend like you."

"I beg to differ. I am exactly the friend that you deserve. I guess it's a matter of getting you a girlfriend now."

He walked away before Claire could come up with a response. She faintly heard him announce that the life of the party had arrived as he crossed the gym's door and chuckled to herself. She would have to ask Andrea to teach her to bake an apple pie or something.

She still didn't feel too comfortable in those shoes, but she still headed for the door. She let a couple go in before her and took a deep breath.

"Come on, Claire. You can do this," she told herself.

She walked inside, passing from the pleasant spring night outside to the almost unbearable heat of people dancing and shouting along with the songs. No one noticed her at all, so for a second, she managed to make her introverted classic move of standing against the wall and trying to be as unnoticed as possible. She couldn't locate Ben in the crowd, so she slowly inched towards the food table, so she would have something to do with her hands instead of looking like a complete weirdo.

She made it as far as the punch bowl before she was intercepted.

"Hey!"

Alexis' face was a sight to behold. She had done something so her normally straight hair was curled around her cheeks. She had applied perfectly sharp eyeliner and her lips were deep red, just like her strapless red and the corsage of roses and daises on her wrist.

Claire was too dumbfounded to understand what she said next. Luckily, the music was so loud that it wasn't weird when she asked:

"What?"

"I didn't think you would come!"

"Oh!" she said and tried to find something witty to say next. "Yeah, not usually my scene..."

"What?!"

There was no way to have a conversation there. Claire huffed and for the next few seconds, she allowed the stupidly gay part of her brain call the shots. She grabbed Alexis by the hand, intertwining their fingers and trying to ignore the swarm of butterflies in her stomach as she started to pull from her. Alexis followed her outside without a protest.

The night was almost cool now after the heat inside. Claire took in several gulps of air before she turned around towards Alexis. She realized she was still holding her hand, so she let go and cleared her throat.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess now we can talk.”

Alexis laughed awkwardly and scratched her arm.

“I guess so,” she said.

Claire tried to find something to say, but failed to do so. The things she wanted to say she wasn’t sure Alexis would want to hear them, and the things she felt she should say wouldn’t make a difference in their relationship at this point. So she stayed silent.

Alexis glanced away for a second, as if she was gathering courage and when she looked at her, Claire felt that her knees went a little weak.

“Ben told me what happened that day,” she said in the end.

“He told you?” Claire’s face was very hot all of the sudden. “Everything?”

“No, not everything. Just that you had a fight with Henry and you were upset. I… he told me there was more to it, but that I should ask you. If you wanted to tell me.”

Claire closed her eyes. She really didn’t deserve Ben.

“Okay,” she muttered.

“So… do you want to…?”

Claire stared at Alexis for a very long time.

“You blew me off. For a guy,” she reminded her. “You didn’t talk to me for my birthday.”

“I know.” Alexis lowered her eyes, ashamed.

“You just jumped to the conclusion I was seeing Ben despite knowing you liked him. You didn’t even let me explain.”

“I know,” Alexis repeated, cringing. “I’m sorry, it was… it’s just…” She ran her hands through her hair, nervous, and shook her head. It seemed like she would rather have the earth open up and swallow her than having this conversation. But she had been the one to approach her first and Claire had all the right to be furious, so she refused to let her off the hook by saying anything. Finally, Alexis sighed and looked back at her: “I’m sorry. It was wrong. I was a bitch to you, and I… I can’t say anything for myself, except I’m not very rational when it comes to you.”

That wasn’t what Claire was expecting to hear at all. First of all, because she had understood every word in that sentence, but none of them made sense stringed together like that.

“I… I didn’t want to say anything,” she continued. Her face was growing as red as her dress and Claire wanted to kick herself for thinking that she looked adorable. “But prom night is the night where you tie up loose ends, right? It’s the night when you just say everything that you should have said sooner. That’s what always happens in the movies. You say what you’re feeling and everything comes together and things are as they should be.”

“I… I guess?” Claire said, still not entirely sure where Alexis was going with all of this. “Life isn’t like the movies, Alex.”

“I know, I know. It’s just… you showed up here.” Alexis threw her hands in the air and laughed as if she couldn’t believe Claire had just done that. “And I have to tell you… when I met you, you were unlike anyone I’ve ever known. You like cool movies and cool books and cool music. And you have this weird sense of humor that always makes me laugh and you… you were always there for me when Henry was being an ass and I just wanted to be with you. All the time.”

“Stop,” Claire said. She didn’t think that she could hear what came next, because she had dared to hope before, only for that same hope to crash on her head like a ton of bricks. She didn’t think she could take it again.

But it was like a dam had broken and Alexis was unable to shut up unless she had said everything she had to say.

“And we were spending so much time with Ben I thought maybe what I felt was because of him, you know? And I tried to fool around with other guys because I thought maybe that way I would forget about it. Because I’d never… never before, I hadn’t…”

“Alex, please,” Claire begged.

“… and I have no idea how to handle this,” Alexis concluded. “I have no idea what to do, because I’ve never felt this way about a girl before, and I’m just… I’m so confused and I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to lose your friendship.” She breathed in, as if she had run out of words and air at the same time. Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling, smiling with pure relief. She covered her mouth with her hands as if to stop it for a moment, but then slowly lowered them and breathed again. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for the way I acted. I know I messed up everything. And it’s okay if you don’t want to forgive me and if you never want to talk to me again because I weirded you out.”

Claire stared at her. She just stared at her, her hands trembling slightly, unable to undo the lump in her throat no matter how much she swallowed, unable to will her heart to beat at a normal rhythm again.

“Say something?” Alexis begged. “Please?”

Claire forced herself to do so.

“This… this isn’t a dream, right?” she asked, because everything felt so surreal that she couldn’t quite process it. “This… this is really happening. You really just said all those things.”

It was Alexis' turn to be baffled.

“I… did,” she clarified. “I meant it. All of it.”

“I know,” Claire replied. “There’s just… a part of my brain that it’s stupid and gay and it filters things sometimes so I’m checking that I didn’t just hear what I wanted to hear.”

Someone laughed behind them.

“Oh, my _God_!” Ben shouted between chuckles, hitting his forehead with his open palm. “Claire, you useless lesbian! Go to her, dammit!”

Claire didn’t need to be told twice. She forgot she was wearing suicidally high heels, she forgot they were in the school’s parking lot and that anyone other than Ben could come out and see them and tell everybody. She forgot she was angry and sad and that she'd spent almost an entire year pining and hating herself for pining after her friend. None of that mattered: the petty fights, the jealousy, the secrets. The moment she put her hands on Alexis’ cheeks, the moment she checked into her crystal clear eyes and pulled her closer so the skirts of their dresses tangled together, blue against red, all of that stopped mattering to her.

There was only Alexis, and her hands on Claire’s waist, and her mouth that tasted like cherries. She was vaguely aware that Ben was clapping and cheering and all around making a scandal somewhere to their left, but other than that, the world and everything that was wrong with it seemed to have vanished completely for a few glorious seconds.

When they broke apart, they both giggled like idiots.

“I’m still not entirely sure I’m not dreaming,” Claire confessed.

“Well.” Alexis put a hand on her cheek, smiling. “I guess you’re just gonna have to double-check.”

But before she could kiss her again, Ben ran towards them and embraced them both in his huge arms with such force he almost knock the air out of their lungs.

“I love you so much, girls,” he said, with a broken voice. “I’m so glad that you figured it out. This is the happiest moment of my life!”

“Ben, are you okay?” Alexis asked him.

“I just got a lot of feelings, okay?!” Ben sobbed.

Claire laughed and patted him in the back.

“Come on, I’m sure there’s napkins inside you can use to blow your nose instead of our dresses.”

“Are you sure you want to stay?” Alexis asked her, arching an eyebrow. “I mean, this isn’t exactly your scene.”

“Won’t be worse than the Winter Formal,” Claire said, laughing as they guided Ben back to the gym while he continued to cry copiously. “Nothing can beat that train wreck.”

Alexis thought about it for a second and then smiled.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I guess so.”

It wasn’t bad at all. A few napkins and some punch later, Ben had regained his composure and insisted they absolutely _had_ to dance. He took turns taking them to the dance floor, but completely forgot about them when Krissy Chambers crossed the dance floor and asked him to dance with her. Claire and Alexis didn’t care too much, because that meant they could dance together for a while. And when Claire’s feet started to ache, they stole an entire platter of sandwiches and slipped it right under Mr. Phelps’ nose. The set the platter on the Impala’s hood and sat next to it, folding the skirts of her dresses underneath them to be more comfortable.

“When did you know?” Alexis asked. She didn’t need to clarify what she meant.

“I’m not… I don’t think there was just one moment when I knew,” Claire replied. It was a hard question to answer, because she had been looking at Alexis for so long that she didn’t even remember a moment when she wasn’t from the second they had met. She wasn’t sure she could even find the right words to tell that to her. “It just happened overtime. Every day I looked at you and every day I found another little reason. You were so smart and dedicated to everything you did. I just couldn’t stop admiring you.”

Well, that hadn’t been so hard. Alexis’ eyes were shining bright when Claire looked at her and smiled.

“What about you?”

Alex tilted her head, as if she was thinking it very thoroughly.

“When I saw all soaked under the pouring rain chasing after a puppy in my yard,” she said in the end, smirking. “You were just too damn cute.”

“Shut up,” Claire said, looking away as her cheeks turns red. She stretched her hand and put it on Alexis', intertwining their fingers and squeezing a little. Alex made no attempts to push it away, but when she looked up, she seemed sad.

“What happens now?” she asked. “I’m going away to college in the fall and you…”

“I’m going to stay,” Claire told her. Alexis’ eyes grew wide with surprise.

“I thought you hated this town.”

“I don’t hate all of it,” Claire said. “And Meg offered me job. I’ll get to travel to New York a lot for the races and you’re going to visit your mom,” she added. She put a hand on Alex’s cheek and make her turn to look at her. “So we’ll see each other. We’ll make it work. And we still have that road trip we’d say we do with Ben, remember that? We’ll make him drive and you and I can make out in the backseat.”

Alex giggled. Her eyes were so bright when she leaned over to kiss her again. It didn’t matter if Claire was wrong about the future. That night, things were like in the movies. Things were just like they were supposed to.

 

* * *

 

“We are not having this discussion, Castiel,” Meg said, in a tone that indicated she wasn’t willing to keep on listening. “That is not happening. I’m telling you now, you can forget about it.”

Castiel laughed and stopped the car in front of the Gas ‘N’ Sip before he turned to her. His girlfriend had her arms firmly crossed over her chest and she was pointedly refusing to even look at him.

“It was a joke, Meg,” he clarified. “You didn’t have to take it so personally.”

Meg’s eyes were pure fire when she turned her glare on him.

“Screw you,” she said, before she opened the door and marched away.

Castiel sighed and pinched his nose. He didn’t think what he had said warranted the ire, but Meg was certainly not willing to listen to him. He would just have to wait for her to calm down a little before he tried apologizing again and explaining, again, that he hadn’t meant it seriously.

For now, he had to get out of the car and trot a short distance to catch up with her. Meg was already at the door and she very deliberately let go of it, so Castiel had to step back to avoid being hit by it when it swung over.

“That was wholly unnecessary,” he told Meg when he finally reached her.

“Your tongue is wholly unnecessary,” Meg snapped. Not her best insult, but then again, Castiel was starting to think maybe what he had said had been a little insensitive.

Nora watched them from behind the counter, her eyes wide

“Umh… hello,” she said, nervously.

Castiel remembered that the last time he had talked to her, months before, it hadn’t been exactly a friendly conversation. Meg, however, didn’t care about that. She smiled at her like no time had passed and like she hadn’t just been fighting with Castiel in the car.

“Hello, Nora. How’s Tammy?”

“She’s… she’s good,” Nora replied. She looked down for a second and then up again. “Uhm…”

“Tom’s being paying you the child support in time, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah. Yes,” Nora mumbled. She blushed, almost like she was embarrassed to discuss that issue when it had been her who had insisted on it. “He’s been… yes.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Now that he’s living back in the ranch, I’ll make sure that he behaves.” Meg winked at her. “And if he puts a toe over the line, I’ll give you his ex-wife’s number and you two can conspire against him.”

Nora still looked confused, but she managed to smile despite that.

“Do you have the thingies I ordered?”

“Oh, yes.” Nora leaned over and put a bundle of magazines over the counter. “They got here this morning.”

“You are a sweetheart.” Meg picked it up and practically tossed it at Castiel, who caught it right before it hit him in the chest. “Call me sometime next week. I would love to see my niece.”

She turned around and left without waiting for Castiel. He smiled awkwardly at Nora and told her it was good to see her before he followed Meg outside. As soon as they were in the car, Meg grabbed the bundle of magazines and started looking through them. Most of them had her and _Morningstar_ on the cover, either at the moment they crossed the finish line in the Derby or later in the podium, with _Morningstar_ covered in the mantle of roses. Meg read over those articles quickly and folded the corner of the page so she could find them later.

“Anything interesting?” Castiel asked her, but Meg must have still pissed at him, because she stared daggers into him until he shut up and turned on the engine.

Finally, she found an article that demanded her attention long enough that she read it in silence. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her grin growing wider with every word.

“Anna’s article,” she explained without him having to ask. “Listen to this: _‘Despite the grave injury that_ Lady Rowena _sustained on the track, it’s not the end of the line for this promising filly. Thanks to Meg Masters' generous donation of an important part of the prize money she earned at the Derby,_ Lady Rowena _will recover and spend her retirement days at the Morningstar Ranch. She might have lost the Derby and her chance to earn the Triple Crown, but her foals might fulfill those dreams in the next seasons.’_ ”

“That’s very good,” Castiel said.

“Yes. Can you imagine how much money people are going to pay for  _Morningstar_ and _Rowena_ ’s children?”

Castiel meant the fact that the article painted Meg in a sympathetic light, but he chose not to say so. He wasn’t going to offend her further that day but by insinuating she had a heart bigger than anyone imagined and that it might not be a bad idea to let others see that.

“Wait, there’s more,” Meg announced with a wicked glimmer in her eye. “‘Rowena _’s original owner, Mr. Fergus Crowley, declined to comment on the details of the sell. He also declined to comment on the current criminal investigation into his company. According to sources at the DA’s office of Connecticut, charges could be brought before a Grand Jury within the next few months. More on this exclusive on page 55.’_ Oh, my God!” Meg laughed. “That is too good! How did she even find out about that?”

“She is a journalist,” Castiel said, shrugging. “Her job is to find out things.”

He didn’t tell her he had asked the same thing to Tom that night at Louisville.

“Look, I got caught red-handed one time and it almost cost Meg the ranch,” he’d told Castiel then. “It cost me my marriage…”

“You having a love child with someone else might have contributed to that too,” Castiel had pointed out. He bit his tongue when Tom glared at him in a way that reminded eerily of Meg right before she fired him that one time.

“Anyway,” Tom had continued. “Not that I’m doing those things anymore – because if I were and Meg caught me, she would blast my head off with Grandpa’s shotgun – but I know the signs of a Ponzi scheme when I see one. Crowley offered me an obscene amount of money for the ranch that he couldn’t possibly have, not without scamming it from the supposed investors who want to build on all the land he bought in Northeast Haven. I’m telling you, the guy’s a fake.”

“But you were desperate to sell to him,” Castiel had reminded him.

“I was desperate for money because my ex and my baby mama were both after me. And the guy looked legit at the time,” Tom had shrugged. “But when detectives knocked on my door and asked me if I knew anything about his business, that’s when I figured it was best to jump ship. It’s one thing to cheat a bunch of disgustingly rich guys and watch them fight over a horse. It’s a different thing entirely to get involved in something illegal.”

Castiel had bit his tongue this time not to point out that Tom was lucky no one had pressed charges against him for that scam.

“Why haven’t you told this to Meg?” he’d asked instead. “Or to the people in town. They deserve to know…”

“Dude, I’m a hack as much as he is,” Tom had said. “Do you think anybody would believe it if it came from me? They would think I’m just trying to throw dirt on Crowley for the sake of helping my sister. I’m not sure why the hell you would believe me either.”

Castiel had wondered the same thing on the following days. He had no way of knowing if Tom’s claims were true. Perhaps that’s why he repeated them to someone who had the means and the motivation to find out about them, and they had turned out to be right. He didn’t know if he should be surprised about it or not.

After all, Tom wasn’t that different from Meg.

He greeted them from amidst a mountain of papers he had piled up on the kitchen’s table, while he typed on his computer and talked on the phone at the same time. He lifted up a finger at them to get them to wait.

“Yes. Yes. Thank you for your time.” He ended the call and lifted up his head. “Well, I got good and bad news.”

“Here we go,” Meg said. And despite still being angry at him, she stretched her hand and squeezed Castiel’s.

“Insurance won’t cover a horse we already bought injured, so we’re going to be paying for _Rowena_ ’s recovery out of our pockets,” Tom announced. This came as a surprise to precisely no one. “The good news is, our pockets might be deeper than we thought. We’re still not out of the woods, and we’re gonna have to wait and see how you and _Morningstar_ do in the next two races. But the bank’s not threatening foreclosure anymore.”

“Really?” Meg asked, arching an eyebrow. “How’s that possible?”

“Well, it helps that after the alimony and child support I still have some income to invest in paying our debts,” Tom explained. “Not that I wouldn’t like to have less debts than saving that horse is going to get us, but… I don’t know. I’ve done stupider things for a lot less.”

“Yes, you have.” Meg let go of Castiel’s hand and walked around the table to lovingly smack her brother on the head. “You better don’t forget that.”

“No, boss,” Tom answered, rolling his eyes.

But both the Masters were smiling and that, Castiel thought, was the thing that made so similar. They were better than they let on. They cared more deeply than they would ever admit.

Meg’s next stop (with Castiel always on her tail, waiting for the moment she decided to talk to him again) was the paddock that just last summer had been used to hold _Morningstar_. Those days, it was being used by Ruby and _Rowena_. She limped with a blue cast around her leg, but it seemed like a small miracle in on itself that she was standing at all and following Ruby’s instructions as the trainer guided her with very slow steps. Claire, Ben, Alexis and a fourth girl Castiel didn’t know watched them from the fence in silence. Since school was almost over and they were done with most of their exams, they had extra time to spend together and she had asked them if she could invite them over that afternoon.

“What are you up to, kids?” Meg asked, approaching them. Claire shrugged, but the other three actually looked at her and greeted her.

“Is it true that horse would have been put down if you haven’t bought it, Miss Masters?” Ben asked.

“Probably,” Meg admitted. “Good thing I did, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. She’s very pretty,” Claire agreed. She was leaning forwards with her hands on the fence and she clearly could have stayed there for hours, but her friends shifted on their places a little bit uncomfortable. Perhaps Meg’s presence had disturbed them a little bit.

“Claire, why don’t you take your friends for a ride?” Castiel suggested.

Claire’s face immediately lit up. “Can I?”

“Sure. Take _Satrina_ and _Persephone_ , though. The chestnut was training this morning and he needs to rest,” Meg pointed out.

Claire smiled, amused. “You’re going to come to love the name _Leggers_ one day.”

“Never,” Meg assured her. “Off you go.”

“I… I don’t know how to ride,” protested the new girl.

“It’s fine, Krissy, I’ll teach you,” Ben said. “They don’t call me the Lone Rider for nothing.”

“Literally no one calls you that!” Alexis replied.

“Stop emasculating me in front of the girl I’m trying to impress, Alex. That’s rude.”

Krissy blushed and Claire laughed as the four of them walked away. Castiel saw her grabbing Alexis’ hand and decided he was going to ask about it later. Not that he expected her to tell him, but he had noticed she was on a particularly good mood since the prom.

Meg was the one leaning against the paddock now, watching Ruby’s attempt to get _Rowena_ to listen to her. Castiel leaned next to her and he couldn’t help but to think about the day where Meg had brought him to that same spot to proudly present him to her champion.

They were strangers then. It felt like a lifetime ago.

“Are you still mad at me?” he asked her.

Meg sighed deeply before looking at him.

“I’m not mad at you.”

“You sounded pretty mad a while ago.”

“Well, what did you expect?” she huffed, sounding very mad despite her assurances of the contrary. “You basically just said we wouldn’t be able to win the Triple Crown.”

“That is nowhere near what I said,” Castiel sighed, frustrated. “I said that if we won the Triple Crown, we should get married.”

It had taken him a great deal of courage to make that joke, partially because it hadn’t been a joke, not entirely. He had the impression she would laugh and say it was too soon or that she had just said she loved him the previous week after drinking too much champagne.

He had no idea how his words had translated to him doubting their future victories in Meg’s head.

“Same thing!” she insisted. “Why would you joke about that if you weren’t sure that we’re not going to win?”

“That was not…!” Castiel forced himself to breathe deeply and calm down before he continued. “That was not what I meant at all.”

“Then what the hell did you mean?” she asked. Castiel started looking for a way to explain it that would make sense, but he didn’t have to. Meg frowned and took a closer step towards him. “Were you… were you proposing?”

“I was… trying to see if you would be open to the idea of me proposing,” Castiel confessed.

Meg stared at him and slowly lowered her head to touch her forehead, clearly exasperated.

“Oh, my God, I’m in love with an idiot.”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel sighed. “Meg… what’s so amusing?”

Because now Meg was openly laughing at him and shaking her head.

“Goddammit, Clarence. You really need to work on your pitch for that kind of thing.”

Castiel smiled. Once again, her fury had come and gone as quickly as a summer storm. He took step closer and wrapped his arm around her waist.

“Well, let me be perfectly clear. I would marry you, whether we win the Triple Crown or not.” He left a peck on the tip of her nose. Meg chuckled again, but she froze when he asked: “Would you?”

“What?” Meg asked. Castiel didn’t clarify what was already out in the open. Meg puffed again. “This has to be the worst proposal ever.”

“I will work on a better one with a ring and a public,” Castiel promised her. “As soon as I now you will say yes.”

Meg narrowed her eyes at him. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her.

“Tell you what. Buy me the ring if we win the Preakness Stakes. Wait for me with it at the finish line in the Belmont Stakes, and I will make sure to cross it first.”


End file.
